A New Future For Flex?
My love for Flex waned a little over the last year or so. In fact I must have gone a year or more without using it at all. It's only recently I've started using it again. This happens to coincide with some exciting news about future directions for Flex as version 4.5 is released.
Part of the reason it's fallen out of favour with me is the rise of the mobile device. In particular the iPad. The trouble with suggesting Flex apps as solutions to customers is that you then have to be able to explain why they don't work on iPads.
I do still use Flex though. Mainly to create administrative backends to HTML-based websites. Even then I feel like it's a slightly restrictive that their use is bound to a browser on a PC.
Flex For Mobile
In steps Flex for Mobile. You can now use Flex to create apps for the web, desktops, Android, Blackberry Playbook and (by June) Apple iOS.
From the press release:
In June, Adobe plans to release updates to the Flex framework that will enable developers to reuse most or all of their code across applications that target multiple platforms, including Web, desktop, Android, BlackBerry Tablet OS and iOS.
Don't get too excited. This doesn't mean that Apple now supports the Flash player. What it means (as I understand it) is that Android and Blackberry support the AIR runtime, whereas, for iOS devices, Flex builder will act like a bit like Appcelerator Titanium, but will convert ActionScript (rather than JavaScript) in to native iOS code at compile time to produce an installable app.
It doesn't mean you can compile a single Flex app and deploy it to any device. That would be asking way too much. Only a pure web app could ever do that. But it does mean that you can share a common ActionScript codebase between the three separate Flex projects you'd need to create in Flash Builder 4.5 in order to target all devices -- you'd need a Flex project to target the browser, an AIR project for desktops and a Mobile project for mobile devices (whether one Mobile project can target AIR-ready devices as well as iOS I don't know).
This has given me a revived interest in Flex. Rather than learn to code iOS apps natively or using the likes of PhoneGap I can now use an IDE and language I'm already comfortable with.
There's no doubting that mobile computing is here and will only get bigger. Don't get left behind!
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I must be the only one paid up with my ISP.
Read a book back Jan 1 - title escapes me - but the topic was using HTML5 and CSS3 to make "good as iOS Apps" with just HTML, Javascript and CSS. The examples were pretty tame but with the newer features of HTML5 / CSS3, there is mighty power there for free.
Yesterday, I pulled up a web based app I've been working on for Blackberry here at work, on an iPad, for the first time. Because it followed the guidelines in this book, it worked first time out, no changes.
So with regards to portability, turning out standardized web interfaces is a bit ahead of the Flex state of the art. Granted - they are catching up fast but I think they are yet behind the curve.
Also, it's good to know much of what we've known for years about web development translates to mobile devices. It's just a smaller screen, in many cases, and requires a bit more focus on usability.
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I put it down to me having taken my finger off the pulse with this site. It's not what it once was and hence reader/comments are way down.
Agreed, pure HTML-based apps are always going to be the preferred way. If HTML can do it (as simply and effectively) why do it any other way? the fact there's no deployment effort with an HTML makes it a hands down winner in lots of cases.
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Jake,
Does this mean that you would still have to register the app with iTunes before you could install it?
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Yes. Whatever tool it is you use to create an app for any given device/platform the same rules still apply when it comes to deployment. AFAIK.
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Is there any way to convert a website developed in Flex/AMF - (fully functional and live) into something that is ipad/iphone compatible ? I would expect some amount of work but i hope i do not have to rewrite the entire app.
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Hi Sri,
I'm not 100% sure, as I'm still learning the details of how Flex for Mobile works, but I doubt you'd have to re-write the whole app. Like you say though, you've got to imagine some amount of work.
From what I know already I think only Spark elements are supported on mobile Flex - and only a limited subset of Spark components at that.
I'll talk more about this in the coming months as and when Flex 4.5 support iOS.
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Maybe worth a look:
http://www.jangaroo.net/home/index.html%22
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