Today I published my P2P video application, “Radar” on the Android Market for free, it took about 15mins in total.  You can now all go and download the application and rate it five stars minimum

Serge is also going to try and keep a list of the current applications here.

Installation

We have worked closely with the Android team to ensure that the seamless AIR runtime installation from the desktop is mirrored on devices.  This isn’t a simple process and as you will notice, it’s not perfect.  Today, the first AIR application that gets installed will ask the users permission to download the AIR runtime – this comes from the Android Market.

To be clear, on mobile devices there is a very clear security process for 3rd party installations.  We don’t intend to break that model for the time being as it comes with a number of benefits – like updating the runtime for example.

Get Started

This is obviously a very exciting time and there are already some Flash based games and applications sitting on the market from Flash developers around the world.  I tried playing with a few of them and it’s exciting to see so many of you jumping at the chance to go live, arguably a few jumped too soon.  Please Please test your applications thorough and ensure high quality!!

Submission process

Set yourself up as an Android Developer, it costs $25 and you can use Google Checkout.

Certificates

Once you’re all signed up, you only need to submit your application APK, created from Flash Professional or using the wonderful command line.  In either case, you will need to ensure that your certificate is valid for 25 years.

Go to the AndroidSDK\tools folder using your Terminal or Command Prompt.

adt -certificate -cn flashmobileblog -ou markadoherty -validityPeriod 25 2048-RSA ./androidCert.p12 somepassword

Once completed, you can now compiled your APK as before – selecting this new certificate. Android publishers are free to use self-signed certificates created in this way, however it is advisable to use a proper certificate. The Adobe AIR certificate is well recognized (Verisign based) and works on Android, Mac, Windows, Linux and more to come.

Icons

You will need icons, 48×48 and 72×72.  Google have provided a very detailed set of guidelines on icon production, so I suggest you drop by and ensure that you’re following the best practices.  Liz Myers has a great video session on icons and how to stand out over here (note that this was for Flash Lite, but the concepts are the same).

Screenshots

In addition, in the Android Market there are usually some marketing screenshots.  These help users decide whether they are interested in your app or not and so I suggest that you spend some time making them great.  You can submit two of them at 320×480 or 480×854.

Lastly, you will want to submit a promotional graphic for use on websites and other materials at 180×120 portrait.

Marketing

In these early days I recommend adding Adobe AIR into your description for the application.  This will ensure that users are aware that they need a Froyo device and you can also benefit from free marketing moving forward as users will be able to search for “Adobe AIR”.

To celebrate the launch of AIR2 for Mac, Windows and Linux in this blog post I am providing the full source and build chain for Helisso.  In case you missed the blog post…

Helisso is a packaging tool that allows you to package your AS2 Flash applications that target Flash Lite.  Under the hood Helisso uses a combination of Python compiled binaries, OpenSSL and an AS3 based cab packager written by our engineering team.

In the source you are going to find a huge swathe of code, everything from the Symbian stub applications source to the template Windows application and Python sources.  Prepare to be blown away by the amount of work that went into this

What is it?

• A packaging utility that can produce SIS packages for S60 devices
• This new version supports Windows Mobile 5/6 devices
• It targets the Flash Lite 3.x runtime
• It runs on Windows and Mac OS, all versions

AIR2

Helisso would not have been possible without AIR2, for the simple reason that the time investment in creating two separate applications would have been too great.  Ask yourself, how many examples of SIS or CAB packaging have you seen on Mac OS?  (clue: none!)

Within the application source you’ll discover a class called PackagerService that makes use of the AIR2 NativeProcess API.  This is a HUGE boon for development on platforms using native code, for the first time with AIR it’s possible to make use of applications and services running natively on the OS.

In the case of Helisso, we use NativeProcess to run the Python compile binary Wrap.app and Wrap.exe.  Although in the case of the Mac we use a simple script called doWrap.sh, which has the wonderful task of ensuring that we use the correct version of Python on the Mac.  So this will be a particular point of interest for the Python developers among you.

Flash Catalyst

At the time that I began work on the user interface we were testing Flash Catalyst CS5, so I thought it appropriate to use this for my project.  I began the work in Fireworks CS5 and then moved to Photoshop CS5 for some optimization and to generate the PSD.

From there I was able to produce the simple UI and skin my very first Flex 4 application.  If you haven’t tried this then I cannot recommend it enough, the process is ridiculously simple and you can get started in no time.

You can learn more about Flash Catalyst over here.

Flash Builder 4

Using Catalyst it’s possible to produce skins and define the user experience and interface for your Flex 4 applications.  Flash Catalyst will write A LOT of code for you, but to really get the most out of the Flash Platform you should know a bit of Actionscript 3.

Flash Builder 4 is now a CS5 product, and its the second step to working with Flash Catalyst, allowing me to add all of the backend code.  I merely had to import the FXP file from Catalyst and I was all set after moving a few items around.  There were some minor issues with the actual display of fonts at the time, all of which are now fixed in this latest version.

From there I added quite a bit of code to handle the various buttons presses, error events and used our corporate “Adobe Clean” font.  So that way it actually looks consistent on Windows and Mac – as well as appearing like an Adobe application.

Oppian

I must also acknowledge the efforts of Steve Hartley at Oppian who worked tirelessly on this project.  Many of you have noticed the “much faster SIS package installations” and various other super-tweaks applied to make the end-user experience amazing.

End User Installation

• Mac Build
• Windows Build

Helisso Source Installation

Unzip Helisso source
Unzip the Flex4/AIR2 SDK

Place the Flex/AIR SDK into the helisso\SDK\ folder so that it looks like this..

Add this SDK to Flash Builder preferences, it should look like this…

Mac users are now all setup because Python and OpenSSL are baked into the OS. Windows users need to install Python and OpenSSL separately, so follow closely

Python
The installer is located in Helisso\tools\build\pc\installs\python-2.6.4.msi
Run this installer and use the default settings

OpenSSL
Unzip the file Helisso\tools\build\pc\installs\openssl-0.9.8h-1-bin.zip
Rename the folder to OpenSSL and move it to a root folder, you might want to put it in the same location as Python

Add Python and OpenSSL to the Path variable
Check out this video that shows you how to add an Environment variable and find the Environment variables dialog (watch carefully)
You merely have to add C:\Python24;C:\OpenSSL\bin to the end of the string

I hope you enjoy looking at the code and playing with all of these Flash Platform tools.  Let me know if you have any questions regarding Helisso and about your AIR 2 projects and ideas.

Mark

For example Flash Platform for the Digital Home is how we refer to the optimized Flash Player that runs on set-top boxes.  Under the hood it’s Flash Lite 3.1, but that’s a Flash Player optimized for TVs, get it?  You’ll notice that in the coming months I’ll be referring to Flash Lite as Flash Player across the board, and you should too.

To be clear though Flash Lite is still the name of the product.

So today we announced that one of our key products Flex Builder will be renamed Flash Builder in the next release.  It makes a lot of sense when you consider Flash Catalyst is on the way and we need a way to tie them together, they both rely on the same open source Flex SDK.

In terms of workflow you could create your assets in Photoshop, use Flash Catalyst to turn these assets into a interactive experience.  Then in Flash Builder you tie up the underlying functionality and hook up the data services etc.

Flex doesn’t disappear as a brand, you still call yourself a Flex Developer because you’re using the open source Flex SDK.  The only difference is that you do your development in Flash Builder.

So that’s all clear then, but Serge has a nice post on this.

Today we announced the Flash Platform for the Digital Home one of the most exciting products I think we’ve produced in the devices space.  We’ve been working on this flat out for many many months, and finally all this hard work has resulted in an incredible new product.

It should be no surprise that the Digital Home player is built on Flash Lite 3.1 (same as the Distributable Player).  Though of course the major challenge has been to create a player that can survive on a set-top box.  Think about it, an average set-top box or TV sits in the home for about 5-7 years, these devices are rarely turned off and they are expected to consume little power.  Although to be fair, many are very bad at saving power in the off state including my box.

I remember sitting in an engineering training session (a year ago) watching a Flash Lite game playing on a television.  The team informed us that the challenge ahread was similar to plugging an HD TV into a mobile phone and attempting to go on youtube.  Think about it, a 300mhz CPU playing 1080p H.264 video; it just shouldn’t be possible.. but with the magic of Flash Lite and very clever engineers, it is

The results have been incredible and it’s pretty clear now that there’s a real opportunity to bring the web to your TV.  As usual we haven’t done this alone, we’re working with partners across the industry including Broadcom, Intel, Comcast, Disney Interactive, Netflix, New York Times Company, NXP Semiconductors, Sigma Designs, STMicroelectronics, Atlantic Records.  Of course there are others, but that would be telling

But these days we’re all about “multi-screen” so let us consider that for a moment.  Just think of all those users sitting in front of their TVs every night, and every single one of them fiddling with their mobile phone.  You see, interactive TV may have been around for some time but this changes the market and opens up a huge opportunity.

To give you an idea of what has been considered here at Adobe, enjoy!