Use Flash Pro CS5 To Build iPhone Apps – taterboy
October 6th, 2009 | Filed under: ActionScript 3, Flash, iPhone

I have to admit I was skeptical of the rumors and was not alone either. There were many tweets on this subjects as everyone speculated what the “Big Flash Announcement” was was going to be. So now it’s out of the bag, you will be able to build iPhone apps with Flash Pro CS5. So what does this mean?


Here are a couple articles about how the technology works and will give us some insight into what it will be like to build iPhone apps with Flash.

Most Important, The FAQs:
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Applications_for_iPhone:Developer_FAQ

An Overview:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/logged_in/abansod_iphone.html

7 Current Flash Apps In The appstore:
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashcs5/appsfor_iphone/

This article may sound cynical as we discuss some of the different hurdles to getting an app from Flash Pro CS5 to the iPhone. The news is exciting to hear and your brain can go wild with the possibilities, but the real question is what kind of apps can we actually build with Flash for the iPhone?

All The Good Things: Being Accepted
Let’s start with the good things in the announcement. The biggest being there are currently 7 apps already in the app store using Flash as a development tool. This is important because there has been much speculation about Apple and Adobe’s relationship concerning Flash. Though Flash is just a tool to build content that is compiled into a native iPhone app, there have been many questions concerning Apples application approval process in relation to using other technologies such as Titanium and Phone Gap to build iPhone apps. So now we know that if we build a truly good app that follows Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines and is not porn or offensive, then your app will probably get approved.

Sharing/Saving Data:
It was great to hear about RMTP, AMF, Remote Objects and SQLite access. SharedObjects and SQLite will allow you to save data, settings, scores and current game information which is important on the iPhone. The iPhone is first and foremost a phone, made to make and receive calls, expect that your game or app will be interrupted during gameplay. Your players will be happy to be interrupted in most cases, so we have to make concessions that will allow them to enjoy returning to the game after their call or text message. Web protocols are also great for making apps the extend beyond the phone and the phone’s current location. If none of these features provide the level of data input and output to suit your needs, there is always file access, where you can import or export your own file types and formats for later use.

Native iPhone UI controls:
All the great elements of the iPhone are available to your apps as well. MultiTouch, Screen Orientation, Accelerometer, Geo-Location and copy/Paste. Touch-screens are so great for games, the hand is a natural controller that noone has to learn or get comfortable with. The new gesture APIs in FlashPlayer 10.1 will offer some new innovations over traditional UI controls. Accelerometer is also a great control element to harness in your game or app. The trick is to build games or apps that feel that they belong on the iPhone, not just adapted to work on the iPhone. These control options and features will help you do just that.

Core iPhone Functionality:
Saving images to the iPhoto Library, mp3 and video playback are also core iPhone/iPod Touch elements. I still wonder if we can read from the iPhoto Library and if they will work on a still camera API in the future.

Input TextFields and Keyboard Support
Input text fields work as expected with native iphone Keyboard Support. This is big news to me al least and seemed to be left off all the promotional material. It was confirmed in the Adobe Labs’ Applications for IPhone forum and “That Roach Game” let’s you input your username and password.

No Webkit
One of the downsides in the announcement is no webkit. The iPhone API offers this, allowing you to embed web content within your apps, also safari has the built-in ability to find phone numbers and addresses that will link out to the phone or maps. Webpages are also a lite way to display content that you will now have to build yourself if you need it, which will increase your app size.

Data Diet:
Application Size may not seem like a big deal, but it is huge when the base app size for these applications is 8 megs. Apps over 10 megs can not be distributed over 3G, meaning when people are hanging out showing off their apps, they will not be able to download your app until they get home or find a wifi spot. Everything you add to your app will increase it’s size, with only a 2 meg threshold to limiting and possibly hurting your sales, this is big.

The Big Question? Performance:
One of the real downsides to developing on the iPhone with Flash is performance. It seems the frame rate has to be so low that animations are not as smooth as other iPhone games or what we are used to seeing on the computer. Though they the apps I tried seemed smooth enough, once in a while the animations were jerky. Some tricks like caching and constantly removing unused items from the display list will help, but I think we trade the ease of working with a technology we know for some real disadvantages in performance and application size. There are already people saying “I told you so!” on the performance, but I am sure sooner or later this will become very manageable, but we still have to earn a living by building applications today.

Testing iPhone Features On The Device Only:
In Flash we are used to building apps by tweak and test, tweak and test. We will be able to render our applications and test them as we normally do in the Flash debugger, but we will not be able to test any of the iPhone features like screen orientation in the iPhone simulator like current iPhone developers do. Granted the real test of an application is on the device itself, but it is nice to get as many features working before having to build the app, add it to iTunes, sync the phone and finally test.

Flex? Flash Builder?
Some have asked the question about developing in Flex. I assume you could build code libraries in Flex then use them in your final build from Flash. Flex is such a nice coding environment compared to Flash, but it looks like by the time everything ships, Flash Builder and Flash will be tightly integrated, plus the enhancements to the editor give Flash IDE a lot of the features available in Flex. I can understand that many of the components and mxml structure would not lend it self to building the kind of small apps we use on mobile devices. It could also be that the Flash and Flex (Flash Builder) teams to not talk as much as they should. In the FAQs it does mention a product the Flex team is working on called slider to build mobile apps, but the link they provide for more information is a dead end.

Conclusion:
I am very excited about using Flash as an option to build iPhone applications. The cons listed above make my decision to do so not an automatic one, but based on the simplicity of the application (can I build it small enough to perform good enough?) and the technologies needed (do I need the ability to read from the iPhoto library).

Flash CS5 is still a little bit from going public beta, then even more time before launching in it’s final form. Some of these issues could be resolved sooner rather than later. I do appreciate all the Flash team’s work in this area, this is huge, but not yet a complete iPhone development solution.

In my research I found this blog post on alternate iPhone development technologies, it seemed to be more complete than most.
http://josephburchett.net/?p=71

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7 Comments »

  1. [...] Use Flash Pro CS5 To Build iPhone Apps | Taterboy.com: Graphics … [...]

    Pingback by Survey Ranks Most In Demand Tech Jobs In Colorado | Web … | DevBlogr — October 6, 2009 @ 7:36 pm

  2. I used to write programs years ago… I’ve forgotten most of it these days. Now I’m strictly into media development and marketing services. Even with the handicaps, this is going to give me another route to offer another facet of marketing to my clients which would otherwise not be possible for me. Great break down of pros and cons, taterboy. Thanks!

    Comment by Daniel Purifoy — October 26, 2009 @ 7:23 am

  3. Thanks for those article,they are very interesting. Best regards

    Comment by kolorowanki — November 7, 2009 @ 12:31 pm

  4. Nice post, thank you, it intrigued us to know more about using flash on iPhone apps, we have got clients asking us
    about flash on iPhone apps.

    Comment by CyberNetikz — January 20, 2010 @ 10:15 pm

  5. Thanks, CS5 very useful resource!!

    Comment by Jim Hancockk — May 23, 2010 @ 8:00 am

  6. Interesting article. Can you please post a comprehensive review after you’ve had some time to work around the apps?

    Comment by Laura Brisbane — May 24, 2010 @ 5:41 pm

  7. Thanks for this great article. Very insightful information on using Flash for iPhone apps. A very well thought out article. Many thanks.

    Comment by Gold Coast girl — May 24, 2010 @ 7:49 pm

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