Hasta La Gadget!

Adobe’s making a serious play for the app space today, and it’s not limiting itself to phones — its new Air cross-platform runtime environment is designed to toss apps on your smart televisions and tablets as well. Air 2.5 supports accelerometers, multi-touch gestures, cameras and microphones, GPS data and hardware acceleration in a variety of silicon. What’s more, the company wants a piece of the action, so it’s going to help developers bring their Air 2.5 apps to market by partnering with the stores themselves, and charging a mere 30 percent to take care of your hosting, billing and app store approval — though we’re informed the service will be free for the first year if you sign up today. The newly-christened Adobe InMarket won’t help you get into the iTunes App Store, as you might expect, but it should assist with the Intel AppUp store… and perhaps a pair of brand-new marketplaces from RIM and Samsung as well.

Remember when Samsung said it had a single platform for TV and phones late last week? We think this was what the company was talking about, because we have Adobe’s word that the Samsung SmartTV will run Air 2.5 apps when it launches in early 2011. Air will also come standard in RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook, but it’s not just for fun, productivity and games there — Adobe told us that the PlayBook’s entire UI is built on Air. We’re not sure quite what we think of Adobe’s role as encapsulated software middleman in the TV and tablet spaces, but we suppose that’s what the firm’s been doing on desktop PCs for years — after all, what’s Adobe Reader but a free way to open licensed PDFs? You should find the Adobe Air 2.5 SDK available on the company’s website today, and a full press release after the break.

Continue reading Adobe announces Air 2.5 for TVs, tablets and phones, launches Adobe InMarket to package apps

Adobe announces Air 2.5 for TVs, tablets and phones, launches Adobe InMarket to package apps originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Oct 2010 00:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Steve Jobs wasn’t kidding when he said Apple was borrowing philosophies from the iPad to implant into the new MacBook Air. Like the iPad, Apple’s brand new MacBook Air is missing a software plug-in that shipped with previous Macs: Adobe Flash.

I noticed this upon booting up and attempting to watch a Hulu video for the first time on an 11-inch MacBook Air that Apple loaned to Wired.com on Wednesday. Instead of a video, the message “Missing Plug-in” popped up in an empty window.

The lack of Flash on the new MacBook Air is not a big deal, considering you can simply head to Adobe’s website, download the plug-in and install it on the computer within a few minutes — unlike the iPad or iPhone, which doesn’t support the plug-in at all. But the omission of Flash is both interesting and amusing.

Apple’s grudge against Flash is thoroughly explained in a web post written by Jobs in April. There, he explained that Flash wasn’t technically up to par to perform well on mobile devices such as the iPhone and iPad, and supporting Flash would stifle Apple’s ability to innovate. He added that Flash was the No. 1 reason that Macs crash, and Adobe still hasn’t made any major improvements.

“We also know first hand that Flash is the number one reason Macs crash,” Jobs wrote. “We have been working with Adobe to fix these problems, but they have persisted for several years now. We don’t want to reduce the reliability and security of our iPhones, iPods and iPads by adding Flash.”

However, Apple failed to completely block Flash from the iOS platform. In September, Apple revised its developer guidelines to allow third-party programming tools to be used to develop iOS apps. That effectively opened doors to Adobe’s Packager for iPhone, a tool in Creative Suite 5 that enables Flash to be easily converted into native iPhone app language. So Flash has made it to the iOS platform in a roundabout way.

Jobs can’t be happy about that: An iOS developer told Wired.com it was likely that the FTC forced Apple to allow third-party programming languages because the restriction reeked of anti-competition. The ineffective exclusion of Flash on the MacBook Air, and presumably on future Macs,  serves as a statement more than anything else: Apple really doesn’t want to endorse Flash anymore.

See Also:

• Why Apple Won’t Allow Adobe Flash on iPhone
• Apple Slaps Adobe’s Flash with iPad-Friendly HTML5 Showcase …
• Apple Promotes ‘iPad-Ready’ Websites Ditching Flash
• Google’s ‘Don’t Be Evil’ Mantra Is ‘Bullshit,’ Adobe Is Lazy …
• Apple Video Shows iPad Flash Support, But Don’t Believe It …
• Apple Eases App Development Rules, Adobe Surges

Photo: Brian X. Chen/Wired.com

Like any two technology behemoths, Adobe and Microsoft have certainly had their ups and downs. But now that Google and Apple are looming over them in a number of ways, it seems as if the two may be courting one another in order to help re-level the playing field. According to a New York Times report — which was crafted after collecting reports from “employees and consultants to the companies who were involved in the discussions that took place” — Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen recently met at the latter’s headquarters for a closed-door meeting. Purportedly, the meeting went on for over an hour and covered a variety of topics, with one of ’em being Apple and its newfound dominance in the mobile market. Shockingly enough, a “possible acquisition of Adobe by Microsoft were among the options” of stopping the skyrocketing growth. The report accurately notes that such a deal makes entirely more sense now that Redmond isn’t exactly the 800 pound gorilla that it was before Android and iOS hit the mainstream, though details beyond these assumptions were few and far betwixt. Whatever happens, no one can blame Steve Jobs for not giving Adobe every possible reason to hit Apple with everything it’s got — even if that involves buddying up with Ballmer and co.

Microsoft and Adobe CEOs meet, purportedly plan world domination originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Oct 2010 16:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yes, you read that correctly. The fevered dreams of crime scene investigators up and down the country are being brought to reality by Adobe, with just a single extra lens and some crafty software knowhow. Basically, a plenoptic lens is composed of a litany of tiny “sub-lenses,” which allow those precious photons you’re capturing to be recorded from multiple perspectives. The result is that you get a bunch more data in your image and an “infinite” depth of field, meaning you can toggle at what distance you want your image to be focused after the act of taking it. These plenoptic lenses are inserted between your shooter’s usual lens and its sensor, though commercialization is sadly said to still be a fair distance away. Never fear, you can get hold of a video demo much sooner than that — you know where it’s at.

Continue reading Adobe shows off plenoptic lenses that let you refocus an image after it’s taken (video)

Adobe shows off plenoptic lenses that let you refocus an image after it’s taken (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Sep 2010 14:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Woah, who saw this coming? Apple has changed its super-controversial stance on third party developer tools for iOS apps, now allowing any and all comers, “as long as the resulting apps do not download any code.” We’re guessing this is mostly a nod to game developers, who use ported engines like Unreal and interpreters like Lua, but it also apparently covers apps developed in Adobe Flash CS5. In addition, the rules on mobile advertising have changed, so AdMob ads are seemingly back in, and Apple’s also publishing its App Store Review Guidelines at long last, which will give developers a better idea of how their apps are going to be scrutinized by Apple before they submit them. We’re sure we’ll be hearing plenty in the coming weeks as developers and arm chair analysts rifle through Apple’s so-far-secretive guidelines, but mostly we’re just excited to see what sort of innovation and development accessibility we’ve been missing out on while these third party tools have been off the market. The full (and brief) release can be found after the break.

Update: Google’s responded to the newly-relaxed restrictions, saying “Apple’s new terms will keep in-app advertising on the iPhone open to many different mobile ad competitors and enable advertising solutions that operate across a wide range of platforms.”

Update 2: Our friend John Paczkowski at All Things Digital has Adobe’s statement: “We are encouraged to see Apple lifting its restrictions on its licensing terms, giving developers the freedom to choose what tools they use to develop applications for Apple devices.”

Update 3: In case the last update didn’t give it away enough, Adobe announced in a blog post that it’ll resume development on its Packager for iPhone tools, for Flash CS5 devs who want to convert their work to the portable powerhouse.

Meanwhile, it seems like it’s time for a little recap:

• Apple’s iPhone lockdown: apps must be written in one of three languages, Adobe in the hurt locker
• Adobe says iPhone / iPad adoption and ‘alternative technologies’ (cough, HTML5) could harm its business
• Steve Jobs responds directly to developer over new iPhone SDK rules, cites blog for explanation
• Steve Jobs publishes some ‘thoughts on Flash’… many, many thoughts on Flash
• Adobe’s CEO: Jobs’ Flash letter is a ‘smokescreen’ for ‘cumbersome’ restrictions (update: video)
• Adobe decries Apple’s ‘walled garden,’ yet pledges ‘best tools’ for HTML5
• Adobe targets Apple in ad campaign launched today, publishes open letter from founders
• Steve Jobs’ D8 interview: the video highlights (updated)
• Adobe’s CEO: ‘we’ve moved on’ from Apple’s argument, and Flash still rules

Continue reading Apple backpedaling on some iOS development restrictions, will allow third party tools and ad services

Apple backpedaling on some iOS development restrictions, will allow third party tools and ad services originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Sep 2010 22:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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