Flash CS4 is a bit of dog. I’ve documented a few of those issues. When I first heard that Adobe was adding the ability to create iPhone apps with Flash CS5, I rolled my eyes and thought, “Why are you working to add this major feature, the ability to make shitty iPhone apps, when you should be FIXING the Flash IDE?”
So, while I think it’s a shady move for Apple to ban the ability to write iPhone apps using tools like Flash, I also don’t really care that much. And there are probably some good reasons for it. I really didn’t have any interest in using Flash CS5 to make iPhone or iPad apps. My gut tells me that you won’t be able to make top-notch apps with Flash CS5. If you want to make a really solid iPhone app, you’ll need to create it with the native languages. This partly comes from my experience with Adobe Air apps. I gave up on them pretty quickly because they were pretty laggy and generally gave a poor user experience. This had as much to do with the nature of the technology as it did with the developers. Meaning, it isn’t really the developer’s fault that Air apps are slow and laggy and just don’t feel like native desktop apps. But, since Air apps look and feel different from native apps because they aren’t written created with the native frameworks for the OS, they are automatically NOT going to feel right.
By the way, the whole concept of “write once, deploy everywhere” is an idiotic pipe dream. Making something for a 3-1/2 inch touch screen is not the same as making something for a 10” touch screen which is not the same as making something for a 24” desktop PC. You can do it (most websites only exist in a single version that runs everywhere) but at best it won’t be ideal and at worst it will make people want to punch you in the face.
Oh, Flash CS5 does have some cool new features. The most exciting to me is the uncompressed XFL format, which will make Flash source files (FLAs) play nicely with version control systems. Score.
One Comment
Yes. When Apple made out that Adobe products are all buggier than a cellar in an Indiana Jones film… well even though the two companies are locked in a flame war, Apple were right.
Adobe is slowly getting it together, but too slowly, and they’re too busy chucking out new stuff to concentrate on fixing bugs, e.g. the fact that Firefox only crashes because of Flash.
It would help if they stop developing about 5 products that all do the same thing in slightly different ways. You can now develop Flash using Flash CS5, the Flex SDK, Flash Catalyst, Flash Builder, Flash Bob the Builder and Flash Shaun the Sheep. Maybe condense these EXTREMELY similar products into something vaguely coherent and not only will they have many times fewer bugs to fix but we’ll also all be able to figure out what we’re all supposed to buy.