Adobe has finally did it. Flash on the iPhone. Flash won’t be available in the “traditional” way, as a browser plugin, because this would allow users to bypass the Apple Store when delivering application for the iPhone, as one could simply browse the web and play flash games instead of downloading (and pay for) them via the Apple Store.

But still, will be a major blast for Apple, as there are thousands of Flash/Flex developers out there that will start writing apps for the iPhone. And since ActionScript is much easier to learn than Objective C, a lot of newcomers will take up Flex in order to code for the iPhone, thus increasing the number of iPhone developers. Adobe also scored some major points with this move, as, let’s face it, we won’t be hearing of “Sliverlight on the iPhone” any time soon.

A+ for Adobe and Apple

PS: I hope they will resume work on the Flex Builder for Linux, which now seems deserted. as its “latest release” was in August 2008.

I’ve won the Adobe Flex Builder Pro licence I was talking about in this post. Because people complained about the low quality of the other pictures, here are some new ones:

This one is near the main bar, in the right:

And this one is at the end of a corridor:

I hope it’s clear for everybody that it is a bar and not my bedroom or something like that. I think the posters are still hanged there, so If you’re passing through Bucharest’s “old center” and you have a debate with a friend about which classes are included in ActionScript 3.0 and which aren’t, you can go to Interbelic, enjoy some nice music, drink a cocktail and look over the diagram

Unfortunately they don’t have a Linux version of Flex builder yet, I can use a virtual machine – probably VMWare server, because Qemu sucks and VMWare Workstation costs a lot of money – to run Flex Builder. I can’t wait to get some free time and dive into Flex and AIR…

10x @ Adobe

I’ve went today to a conference held by Adobe Romania at the Intercontinental Hotel. Of course, I’ll start with the most important aspect of this kind of conferences: the food. The food was decent, better than Microsoft provides at its events but still, an Oracle presentation from a few years ago still remains the unbeaten champion.

Now that that’s covered, I’ll move on to the more technical aspects. It had lots of presentations held by Adobe evangelists, some from the romanian team and two presentations from an adobe senior evangelist – Ben Forta – a really funny dude despite his long beard that might suggest a grumpier person. I’ve liked his presentations a lot, especially the one about Cold Fusion, an Adobe (former Macromedia) product first launched ages ago before technologies like PHP or ASP even existed, but not very popular nowadays. Never the less, it can prove quite a lifesaver sometimes. I also liked presentations held by Mihai Corlan and Mihai Pricope about AIR and Flex. There was a really boring speech from one of their VPs about…well…nothing, but apart from that, I’ve really enjoyed this conference.

I entered in one of their weird contests – the prize being a Flex Professional licence. Apart from which one might expect from a company like Adobe, this contest had nothing to do with programming. It’s like this:

1. go to Mihai Corlan and get 5 posters with Flex and AIR APIs
2. choose any bar or pub you want
3. go to the bartender and convince him to let you hang 2 posters there

Sounds easy, 3 simple steps, but it’s not. Developers are by nature antisocial beings and walking to a bar and convince a bartender to let you hang the Flex API on his wall requires a lot of courage and people skills. Lacking those qualities, I’ve decided to…cheat my way to the licence. Actually it’s not cheating, because they didn’t say that the bartender must be a total stranger. So, I’ve hung 2 posters in Interbelic, a nice bar in the middle of Bucharest’s “old center” . I just happen to know the people there

Here are some pics to prove it:

Waiting for that Flex Builder licence…