Adobe AIR Reviews & Product Details

What I like the most is that I can type out papers and use it without wifi. Sometimes, I may be travelling with no wifi so it is perfect to complete your tasks and perfect to save data then it is there when the wifi comes back on as well. It is a helpful program to use to save and store documents in like a drive which is the best thing.

What I dislike is that the program sometimes does not save immediatley and so I might accidentally exit out of the installer and the data I typed out is gone. So, that is one thing I need to be careful of when I use this Adobe. Other than that, it is a simple, easy application to use for all.

I use this to type documents and save within the application as storage and it has simple to learn and quickly use for your work.

With a single code base I build complex applications for iOS, Android, Window and PC. My apps run great at native speed. I have several in all the different app stores. And whats great is, as soon as a new device or app store becomes available, Adobe Air will be quick to create publish options for that too, allowing me to use the same code for past projects to be the first to the new platforms. Also, Airs drawing and vector capabilities can't be beat, for all the different screen resolutions this is a game changer. Actionscript is an awesome object oriented language.

I wish Adobe would show a little more lovin'

Cross-platform application development.

- Targeting iOS, Android, PC and Mac OS X with the same code base, with ANEs to target platform specific functionality as required. There are off the shelf ANEs for almost anything, but you can write your own (or get someone like me to do so) if there's something else you really need.

- Choice of IDE. I use FlashDevelop (which is free, and fantastic) and do everything in code, you can go the Adobe route with Animate CC if you want a graphical IDE.

- Being able to do nearly everything from a PC, including building for iOS. For example, you can build and debug directly on an iOS device - yes, debugging on an iPhone from a PC. You still need a Mac to build for OS X, and for submitting to the app store. I use Xamarin as well and in comparison the build process for iOS is a long slow joke.

- Performance is excellent - you have to write decent code of course! You can run multiple threads, although the implementation is a little awkward at first.

- Regular updates of the AIR runtime.

- As others have said, Adobe's promotion (or lack thereof) of AIR is less than great. I think the (inaccurate) association with Flash is still a problem. Many reviews of cross-platform development tools ignore AIR altogether (while espousing the virtues of less capable tools).

- The general lack of recognition of AIR from the developer community, which may in the long run be self-fulfilling. I think many developers are unaware of AIR's capabilities, or think it's Flash, or are put off by the Flash association. For example, some people seem to think that Apple won't accept apps written with AIR which is completely untrue.Having said all that there is still an enthusiastic (but comparatively small) developer community.

If you're a programmer, use FlashDevelop.

Many cross platform multimedia training tools, health & safety inductions, general business tools, in-house radio streaming, sales presentation tools, interactive artworks, music apps, some small games. As a single developer creating these from a single code base with the least fuss is important.

- ability to design and code at the same time using Animate CC IDE

- Combines creative visual UI with a strong, mature and powerful as3 syntax which is very approachable

- AIR SDK is updated every month with new, exciting capabilities addressing the latest versions of Android and iOS operating systems

- Adobe AIR native extensions (ANE) allow you to easily tap into the Android / iOS hardware features with a single codebase (check out Distriqt Air Native Extensions)

- Great solution for any type of deliverable from high end gaming to basic business apps

- Adobe’s promotion of AIR

- Association with Flash browser technology (Its not the same thing!)

- comparisons to inferior html wrapped applications

- lack of understanding from developer community

- Have created multiple cross platform apps for business that use REST web services to connect real time data for employees and channel partners

- Created highly engaging learning applications for the automotive industry for iOS / Android tablets

- Create marketing applications for our sales force

I currently use adobe air to help create desktop applications at work. This program comes in handy when trying to make them crossplatform compatible.

It has a very steep learning curve at the start. It really takes a while and a lot of training and effort to get good at using the product. However, it becomes rather easy once you learn what you need to do.

I recommend having an informative class that teaches the application to new students.

We use adobe AIR to help with the creation of applications for students. The benefits are making applications that students can use that will help them succeed in their studies as well as use the information to exceed in their future.

AIR is a really quick way to build apps (especially games - using the Starling Framework in particular) that work across different devices with minimal additional code for the adaption. Once the initial version (say iOS) is built the app can normally be adapted easily for Android in less than a day. Desktop apps for Mac and PC are just as easy to produce too. You can use different feature requirement ANEs (Air Native Extension) to easily access native feature on mobile devices using (usually) simple APIs. There is a very helpful and friendly community too.

The way Adobe took the foot of the gas when the whole 'Flash-gate' happened. It was up to the AIR community (particularly all the team at Starling Framework who really kept the wheels moving) to keep pushing it forward. Now Adobe has relaunched Animate CC there has been much more focus on the software and I think Adobe is now separating AIR as a stand alone product from the perceived Flash association.

Hopefully they will be releasing more ANE's. We currently have to pay other ANE developers to use many of the good ones, (but in fairness the costs are comparatively minimal to buy).

I also would like to see support for Windows Mobile. If they could get this box ticked it would be a no-brainer for clients when they need rapid cross platform development for a game or app.

Getting an app up and running even if its just for prototyping is very quick Cross platforming the app is easily done with minimal code.

I have used AIR for a number of different purposes including Games (distributed via iTunes, Google Play, Amazon app store and private corporate apps for employee use only), Augmented Reality Apps, Desktop apps (Mac and PC) for uses such as touch screen, games / info centres on corporate stands at trade shows

The fact that it's flash is awesome, the power of vector based graphics, UI toolkit and awesome library of tween options makes the game looking good from the start.

Points by Points,

1. The overhead, apps will bundle AIR runtime in the app, adding MBs to your app package.

2. Integration with 3rd party service providers like, Ads & Analytics requires "Native Air Package" which are sparsely available and not supported by Adobe personally.

3. All plugins are not perfect and generic, you might need to download source and modified c++/java/obj-c to your requirement or buy the paid plugins from the company like milkmanplugins.

4. There was considerable lag on start-up of application during runtime loading.

Check all your business requirement are met and available before picking it up for it's jazz

We were solving for quick prototyping and faster product delivery. Prototypes came quick but delivery suffered due to bug free product.

- the possibility of create high-performance content and optimize content

- the ergonomy of the development environment and the usability of the engine

- the great community

- the ability to call native functionalities using AIR native extensions (ANE)

- the facility of publish and debug for cross-platform

- the solidity of the language

- the frequency of the updates

- have more official and free ANE

- find the good ANE is not always easy

- more official API for the different web services

- no windows phone support (for now)

Adobe Air is a top value solution if you don't want to do native app and the quickest way to have quality cross platform mobile application. The development environment is easy to setup and good to use.

I make a mobile application for children for android and ios, the benefits are :

- to use large spritesheet and animation easily and optimize the size

- to publish and debug for cross-platform in one click (on mac and with flash builder)

- have a large choices of librairies for my needs : starling for the rendering, feathers for UI, dragonbones for animations, nape for physics etc...

The ability to take the same code-base and package to Windows, Mac, Android and iOS with minimum fuss is a very strong and valuable feature of Adobe AIR.

With Stage3D and libraries like Starling that enable high performance on all devices.

AS3 is a powerful and mature Object Oriented language that has an incredible number of features. With the addition of many community built libraries, almost anything you can imagine can be built with it.

Development can be done at no cost by using the free IDE FlashDevelop. Though I prefer the paid option of using the Eclipse based FDT.

More and more AS3 libraries appear to becoming abandoned so innovation and progress within the technology appears to be slowing.

Unfortunately clients' lack of knowledge of this technology, thinking it is just Flash, hurts its industry reputation.

Great technology for developing apps if you need to be doing cross platform development. Has many features that make development a pleasant experience.

From my experience it is becoming a more niche technology and is not as widely used as I would hope.

Touchscreen apps, iOS apps, Android apps all from the same IDE (FDT is my choice). Massive advantage being when an app is developer for one platform and client asks for another it is not a complete rebuild.

I use AIR for game development. I'm happy about hardware acclearation for games, the ability to prototype quickly and easily and to test and deploy on multiple devices. I'm also glad for the amount of open source tech available for it like Flixel, Starling and Feathers.

One of the biggest worries that I have about AIR is the uncertainty about its future. With HTML5 support becoming de facto and browsers getting more stable and capable, the need for AIR and the Flash player slowly disappears. It would be interesting to see how AIR will change and that uncertainty is annoying.

If you are making games and you want a quick start, I would highly reccomend flash. If you have any sort of scripting background - like javascript, picking up action script would be a breeze. Tools and libraries like Flixel, Starling and Feathers will be immensly useful. There are a huge number of AIR Native Extensions(or ANEs) that you can use to extend your application's capabilities or to access platform specific functions - like open Game Center or login via facebook etc. If you feel that Flash Builder is a bit expensive as an IDE, you can try out Flash Develop on windows, which is free and open source.

One of the biggest benefits I've had with AIR is the quick turn around times. The ability to prototype new ideas; to actually sit with clients and at times even work in tandem is really useful. The amount of IDEs available like Flash Builder(Win/Mac) and Flash Develop(Windows) and easy cross platform deployment and testing make a developers life easy as well.

It allows me to cross platform my flash ads fairly easily with little to no glitching.

I dislike the fact that at times there are hiccups in the software that casue certain aspects to freeze up while it's running in the background.

I'm using it to produce cross platform ads. It seems to be fairly reliable for the most part.

The usability and the idea to don't need to go open the software every time. The size of the software, and the interfase design. Mostly is a quick solution to any mobile and game development without having to spend so much time signing in or just leave it running while you are doing other work.

Maybe the excessive use of adobe related software for developers.

Search for related software and compared to software made with Adobe Air.

Check the time lapse it took to switch to the Adobe Air software.

Specific solution to any problem without bothering other applications and can be used aside. Using mostly for desktop activities with an easygoing software solution.

What i like from Adobe AIR is the flexibility, how easy it is to build application for multiple platform such as Windows, Mac, Android, iOS even Blackberry OS.

It is also based on Actionscript language, built using Adobe Flash which is one of the best software to create interactive media. With strong user base, there are lots of community that helps developer to solve problems.

I have been working with Flash Develeopers for 5 years and making different kinds of apps such as Games, E-Book reader, Interactive books, Augmented Reality and Kinect Apps.

I have no trouble with AIR app performance, It was amazing and it was still one of the best cross platform runtime in the market.

Since it was not native, AIR app is run on captive runtime and makes the app size larger than it supposed to be.

1. Cut development time (in comparison with native programming language)

2. Can create different kinds of projects (Games, Interactive books, Augmented Reality, Kinect based app)

AIR does an excellent job of providing a low-overhear cross-platform experience for the applications I work on and deploy.

Although updates are always a good thing for security and stability, I often receive update notifications after my AIR app has already loaded instead of when it initially loads.

If you develop applications that need to be pushed to multiple platforms without the concern for developing on unreliable engines, definitely give Adobe AIR a try.

Cross-platform control system user interfaces and hardware configuration environments.

Saving time and cost because Adobe AIR works on android, iOS, Windows and Mac OS X. It is really cost effective to develop apps that is needed to be cross platform in a short period of time since most of the code are reusable and it helps me to focus more on the user interface of the app instead of spending hours trying to tediously maintain different code base.

Performance can some how be an issue depending on how you develop the app. For example most of the things I have are built with Flex or some simple actionscript UI libraries where they are not using Stage3D api. It is ok because they are more business related application, however performance on this part should be more optimized even without fancy animations.

It is a awesome tool to build cross platform application that actually works without great hassle. You should try it.

I am developing cross platform trading tools for stock markets, forex and commodities where it is important that data is streamed seamlessly and UX should be smooth and responsive for users to get notified on strategies they have set. Using Adobe Air with Flex framework save me tremendous hours in developing the core front end application where I can focus more on algorithm and business logic which is more important to my business. Charts are especially useful as they are all ready made while we just have to customise a bit to display reports and data calculated with our algo. It is very useful that the app I develop can be used across different platform with a little changes in the code. Most importantly it is only one code base which i like a lot. Somehow it will be great if UI build without Stage3d can be faster and more responsive since charts are used a lot in trading apps.

i used this toolset on almost 5 projects in my career and surely it was best time, where i learned decent development. actually at that time, there were less comparable choices. Still i beleive there are many, which provide that many features with few clicks. i mean, simple graphics, animations, transitions, sounds without being worried with small file sizes etc. more, i wasn't worried that it will work on mac or windows. super cool stuff was, application deployed was able to upgrade it self, as i put new build on server. i mean, that was awesome.

its really hard to find dislikings in a toolset which was precise in its thought and does exactly that. my choices primarily was due to FILE IO and i get that. from what i remember, using sockets was a bit tricky but it was my inability to understand that, other wise, it was good. adding upgradable features was fun.

if you have to create small desktop app, nothing comes closer in terms of all cool features, ease of use to integrate beautiful graphics etc due to integration with swf / swc files.

at that time, we used to develop simple desktop applications for our clients, weather they connect to internet or work locally. typically, making a mini photoshop like application where use can load image and tweak it with brushes, it wasn't possible for small agency like us in any other toolset.

creating a mini dropbox like app, where our clients can download stuff. too many examples to realize

AS/3, the language is very easy to learn and one can take it to the extremes, and even touch C code through the proper interfaces.

Easy to use, multiplatform, fast IDE. Great for the web, PC and modern (fast) smartphones.

I don't like the fact that Adobe isn't supporting its own product as it should.

Since a competitor stated that it was slow, AIR's public perception trembled and Adobe wasn't able to face it properly affecting the developers community (giving hints of a clear future path and encouraging our clients to adopt it (install the runtime).

So, yes, it is a terrific product, with a marketing problem, something that Adobe can fix only if they decide to.

If you client doesn't know about mad marketing decisions, use it. It is easy and very powerful. Tasks that takes months for me were done in weeks thanks to AIR.

Multiplatform: Real-time sound generation and mixing, databases, animations, games... too many too mention, but you can get an idea of how versatile this platform is.

You have to have it to run a lot of programs since developers package the same code into apps. I like that it doesn't eat up a lot of my computer's processing in order to run it and the applications that need it.

Nothing really. It's a necessity to be able to use certain things.

You need it as a user to run certain programs so you should have it.

For me I need it to run time tracking software, cinematics and graphics software, other adobe apps, and more.

I can use the same codebase to develop apps simultaneously for Google Play and the Apple App Store. I can get good gaming performance by utilizing the GPU on mobile devices.

Sometimes it takes Adobe longer than I would like to fix bugs with the platform, but they work as fast as they can.

Be prepared to use Native Extensions for certain mobile hardware features.

No need to develop separate game apps for both iOS and Android.

ActionScript 3.0 is great language with all needed capabilities for fast creating applications. Also starting Adobe AIR 3.0 there is amazing possibility to extend AIR features through writing custom Native Extensions for AIR.

The most annoying thing is that Adobe doesn't hurry to fix many bugs that AIR has. Also AIR no longer so cross-platform as we want, there is no possibility to deploy AIR application for Windows Mobile. Mobile versions still have not real echo-cancellation, whereas desktop versions have.

Adobe AIR is still good platform for creating games, but I don't recommend it for application development.

We were able successfully built large mobile application using Adobe AIR for both iOS and Android platforms.

Can be used for iOS/Android/Desktop apps

I want have sources for Adobe AIR. Maybe not public but for closed private group of developers that can help Adobe improve this software. AIR is great but inlcude some critical issues that can't be fixed for years. Also some integration required from Adobe side.

If you need to develop fast and quick apps - it's for you.

I',m doing games for mobile and desktop using Adobe AIR.

Cross platform, write once, deploy to: Windows, Mac, iOS, Android and Swf

Fast to development and iterate

High Performance: GPU Hardware Accelerated, New 64 bit Architecture, Multithreading

Premium Tooling: Flash Pro CC / Adobe Animate CC, FlashDevelop, Adobe Scout

Open Source Libraries: Away3D, Starling, Robotlegs

AIR is a fantastic platform, it's a shame Adobe doesn't publicize it more vigorously.

FlashBuild is pretty shit.. I use the open source IDE, flashDevelop..

AIR allows us to develop an App and develop it to multiple platforms all from the same code base. This allows us to deliver a product for less money while still maintaining higher profits.

The versatility of the software by been able to develop for different platforms and devices ,,,

The lack of knowledge of the platform in the world

Based on my experience of using it for mobile game development it works flawlessly

In the need of doing fast Mobile prototypes using AIR in conjunction with Starling frameworks

AS3 is better than JS with strong typing, AMF is better than JSON in my case

Adobe does not pay enough attention to support.

I'm developing an enterprise software system use cross-platform

It's easy to use and it's very time/cost efficient. Building for multiple platforms saves great amount of time. Also using animation tools (Flash, Spine etc) allows to quickly build nice UI and that's a pain in other technologies. Also using Adobe Scout for profiling Adobe AIR apps helps a lot.

Mostly the fact that Adobe stopped working on new version of action script.

- developing the same app for multiple platforms (iOS/Android and desktop).

- creating fast prototypes or simple apps where all the layout can be prepared in Flash IDE (now Adobe Animate)

How it allows for a lot of my different apps to run smoothly

Nothing really it updates smoothly and is very diverse

Apps with adobe air we have access to alot

The expience developing with Adobe AIR was great, and ActionScript is one of the best languages out there.

The delivery experience for the end customer was dreadful and what killed the platform.

Building a cross platform application without investing in several developers/frameworks.

One runtime for different platforms: Android and iOS, shorten development time and resources.

Occasional runtime incompatibility across different platform versions. Components for Mobile Apps development are not up-to-date, e.g. sliding menu is not available like native platforms do.

Definitely a good choice if time and resouces are a concern in development. Simply the best third party runtime that is available for mobile phones at the moment.

Shorten development time and resources.

I loved that it provided a rich internet application experience to design to

Bloated and insecure. It took too many resources

I made a video game with it for nickelodeon

I didn't know at first that adobe air was similar to flash in the way it enhances applications and allows you to see certain visuals. Its a necessary application to run anything adobe. It also makes it easier for developers to build applications.

It seems to take up a lot of disk space.

I realize most adobe products won't work without it. Such as dreamweaver, photoshop, and media player.

Primarily the cross-platform and multiple environment flexibility and that AIR provides as well as the tightly integrated development environment.

Little confidence in the regular general maintenance and support by Adobe due to poor communication and perceived phasing-out of Flash.

The ability to have our product accessible on multiple platforms and in both standalone and web-based iterations and therefore reach a larger consumer base is extremely important and a strong benefit to utilizing AIR, and the primary reason the company has continued with it.

Adobe AIR is free, cross-platform and allow GPU development.

Low promotion, adobe marketing in AIR is poor

Consider starling and feathers as 2D frameworks, they have an amazing support and work very well. I recommend away3D as a 3D framework.

I'm currently working as a freelancer.