Adobe AIR and Adobe Flash Player Team Blog

Launching AIR 3.2, Flash Player 11.2, and
Premium Features for Gaming

Wonderputt, Independent Games Festival 2012 Finalist / Flash Player

Exactly 60 years ago, the first graphical digital video game — tic-tac-toe — was played on one of the world’s earliest computers, the EDSAC. It was a breakthrough, but it wasn’t played: only a handful of people could play because there was only one box like EDSAC in the entire world.

Today, Flash Player powers popular social and casual games on the web that are each played by hundreds of millions of people and generate billions in revenue each year. It powers 9 in 10 of the top games on Facebook, many of the most popular web games in China and Japan, and inspired and acclaimed indie games. Flash Player is the game console for the web — the only technology that ensures a beautiful game can run consistently — without friction or fragmentation — on over a billion boxes around the world.

Gaming has come a long way. And today we’re taking two leaps forward:

Lume, Independent Games Festival 2012 Finalist / AIR

First, we’re launching Adobe AIR 3.2 with Stage3D hardware accelerated rendering for iOS and Android platforms, which allows you craft cinematic, stunning games for 500 million mobile devices and over 1 billion computers with one codebase that lets you leverage native capabilities and blazing fast, native GPU performance.

Second, we’re launching Flash Player 11.2 with premium features for gaming. These allow AAA game developers to publish premiere console-quality, next-generation games with frictionless reach to the most people – an audience 11 times larger than that of the best-selling hardware game console. These capabilities also allow us to support a broad ecosystem of popular game middleware and development tools.

Plays well. Plays everywhere. AIR 3.2

Mobile games are fun — and they make up over half of the most popular apps in app stores for iOS, Android phones and tablets, Kindle Fire, and Nook tablet. But developing them hasn’t been. It’s meant fighting fragmented mobile platforms, settling for lowest-common denominator experiences, and choosing between missing out on the growth of mobile apps or missing out on the growth of web games because nothing does both well. That game is over.

Spaced Away for iPad / AIR 3.2 + Stage3D

Adobe AIR 3.2 is a milestone release that brings the most advanced Flash technology to iPhone/iPad (iOS) and Android phones and tablets. AIR 3.2 introduces Stage3D graphics technology for iOS and Android, enabling efficient, 1000x faster native GPU rendering performance in your pocket.

Use the same code and Stage3D APIs as you can use to build desktop browser games with Flash Player. Create tailored, optimized experiences with native support for mobile capabilities like multitouch, camera/mic, and accelerometers. Add support for anything from NFC to in-app payments to iOS Game Center with native extensions.

Build a Flash-based game that runs beautifully across iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac faster than you could build one Android application that might work on different versions of Android. Enjoy the best of all worlds with AIR 3.2, so you can spend your time and energy on crafting even better game worlds.

State-of-the-art is the state of the web: Flash Player 11.2

Angry Birds on Facebook, Rovio / Flash Player 11 + Stage3D

Six months ago, Flash Player 11 introduced Stage3D on the desktop. It now brings breathtaking, cinematic 2D and 3D graphics to more people than any other web technology whether they’re using Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Safari.

Today, Flash Player 11 is installed on over 80% of connected computers, and Stage3D powers wildly popular games like Angry Birds for Facebook. It’s played by nearly 20 million active users after just six weeks, one of the fastest growing games on the web.

Flash Player 11.2, released today, adds key core features for gaming, including mouse lock, relative coordinates, and right and middle -click support. Combined with Stage3D, you can now build fully immersive games in the browser, whether a first-person shooter or a real-time strategy game using infinite map scrolling. It also extends hardware driver support back to 2008, enabling full hardware acceleration on more computers than ever.

To make life on the web easier and safer, Flash Player 11.2 adds automatic background updates for Windows, so that hundreds of millions of people can benefit from having most advanced capabilities and security updates in new versions of Flash Player, hassle free. And we’ll continue to provide update notifications for major new releases to highlight advanced new capabilities. Finally, this release includes a new multithreaded video decoding architecture, enabling even more seamless, smooth playback of full HD video.

Level Up: Premium Features for Gaming

In addition to new core features in Flash Player 11.2, we announced a new tier of Flash Player premium features for gaming. These premium features will allow console developers to deliver unprecedented, AAA console quality games to over a billion computers – enabling a whole new class of social gaming experiences — and allow us to support a third party ecosystem of gaming middleware, bringing together best-in-class specialized game development tools with the unmatched reach and richness of Flash Player.

This premium features tier will allow you to publish premiere console quality titles by taking advantage of two features in combination:

• Stage3D hardware acceleration (Stage3D.request3DContext)
• Domain memory (ApplicationDomain.domainMemory)

Domain memory helps advanced compilers such as the upcoming new Adobe compiler code-named “Alchemy” enable high-performance, sandboxed execution of cross-compiled C/C++ code in Flash Player. If you’re an ActionScript developer, take advantage of hundreds of millions of lines of existing optimized C/C++ code libraries in your games. If you’re a C/C++ game developer, easily bring your entire native game or game engine to the Flash Platform so that a billion people can play what you’ve made directly in their favorite browser. Starting today, you can apply to join the new Alchemy prerelease program.

Flash Player Premium Features for Gaming

Using premium features – Stage3D hardware acceleration in combination with domain memory – allows AAA console-quality game engines to run across browsers with high performance in Flash Player and use specialized game tools to build games for Flash Player. For example, Unity customers will be able to license premium features to publish web-based 3D games with the reach and power of Flash Player and Stage3D.

With today’s release of Flash Player 11.2, we are making premium features available free of charge for content published prior to August 1. Starting August 1, these features will be available for published content with a license, and there will be no charge for the first $50K in application revenues. The use of premium features within Adobe AIR, including for mobile applications for iOS and Android, will be royalty free.

APEXvj for iOS and Android / AIR 3.2 + Stage3D

We’ve designed this pricing to encourage the creative experimentation that sparks great ideas and great games. This also allows us to invest in and support innovation in Flash technologies that benefit an ecosystem of game middleware and development tools, beyond Adobe’s own first party tools. You can learn more about premium features by visiting adobe.com/go/fpl.

We expect many amazing games won’t need premium features. Games and applications using either Stage3D hardware acceleration or domain memory individually do NOT require a premium features license. For example, you can independently leverage Stage3D hardware acceleration in Flash Player to bring your breathtaking, high-performance game to the most people on the web – at no charge. The rich core platform capabilities of Flash Player will continue to power remarkable games, and we’ll continue to innovate rapidly on our core platform.

You can install Flash Player 11.2 today to see the amazing content the community is creating and start your own development. You can also immediately publish apps to app stores using Adobe AIR 3.2, joining other gorgeous Stage3D –based iOS and Android apps that have already launched. We’re excited to see what you create. And we’re thrilled to help games continue to push the boundaries of imaginative, breathtaking play.

Visit gaming.adobe.com to see more of what’s possible when you can bring delightful, remarkable experiences to the most people on the planet.

Let’s play.

Tom Nguyen
Sr. Product Manager, Gaming / @tomng

Learn more about the launch of Flash Player Premium Features for Gaming and Adobe’s collaboration with Unity Technologies.

As discussed in the just released Adobe roadmap for the Flash runtimes, Adobe has been working closely with Google to develop a single modern API for hosting plugins within the browser (one which could replace the current Netscape plugin API being used by the Flash Player). The PPAPI, code-named “Pepper” aims to provide a layer between the plugin and browser that abstracts away differences between browser and operating system implementations.

Because of this work, Adobe has been able to partner with Google in providing a “Pepper” implementation of Flash Player for all x86/64 platforms supported by the Google Chrome browser. Google will begin distributing this new Pepper-based Flash Player as part of Chrome on all platforms, including Linux, later this year.

For Flash Player releases after 11.2, the Flash Player browser plugin for Linux will only be available via the “Pepper” API as part of the Google Chrome browser distribution and will no longer be available as a direct download from Adobe. Adobe will continue to provide security updates to non-Pepper distributions of Flash Player 11.2 on Linux for five years from its release.

Flash Player will continue to support browsers using non-”Pepper” plugin APIs on platforms other than Linux.

We will be providing a debug player implementation of the Flash Player browser plugin on Linux, and will update the whitepaper once we have more details on how it will be distributed.

Today Google introduced Chrome for Android Beta. As we announced last November, Adobe is no longer developing Flash Player for mobile browsers, and thus Chrome for Android Beta does not support Flash content. Flash Player continues to be supported within the current Android browser.

Adobe is committed to innovating with Flash. We’ll continue enabling content developers to produce rich and immersive applications on mobile devices and PCs via Adobe AIR, and through PC browsers via Flash Player. Flash is uniquely positioned for creating and publishing advanced gaming and premium video content, and that is where we’re focusing our future investment. We recently released hardware accelerated support for 2D and 3D graphics for Flash Player on the desktop and will soon bring these same capabilities to mobile apps via AIR. Together with recent advancements in hardware accelerated video decoding, compositing and content protection, these capabilities provide the richest platform for game developers and video publishers to reach over a billion users across PCs and major mobile app stores, including the iTunes App Store and Android Market.

At the same time, we’re actively working to move HTML5 forward via our ongoing collaboration with Google and other members of the Web community. Adobe’s proposal for CSS Regions, which allows sophisticated, magazine-like page layouts on the web, is now shipping in the Chrome browser. We’re collaborating with Google and other members of the Web community on a proposal for CSS Shaders to enable cinematic, visual effects via HTML5 and we’re exploring the potential of its Shadow DOM proposal, which would enable the integration of rich user interface components in web pages.

We continue to work on ways to make the Web more expressive, drawing on our experience with Flash. Adobe has always been about enabling content developers to produce the richest content possible and we remain committed to that end across platforms and technologies.

Bill Howard, Flash Platform, Product Management

A few months ago, we shipped Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 with Stage3D support, since we shipped we have seen great response from the developers and amazing content being developed. From Zombie Tycoon, the first Stage3D game available online, we have seen tanks and zombies destroying cities, cars doing rallys, Ben Franklin fighting the Dead Coats. Beyond games, we’ve also seen an amazing car configurator for Nissan, and tons of creative experimentations like the Evo Particles Engine. More recently, the famous birds have also been migrated to Stage3D. So far, we have been talking with a lot of companies actually developing Stage3D content, leveraging Flash Player’s penetration, and by the end of 2011, we anticipated that over 80% had Flash Player 11 installed.

We’re excited to announce the updated Flash Player 11.1 for Android devices, which will be followed by an AIR 3.1 update shipping next week. These introduce full support for Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), including the new Galaxy Nexus. These updates will be available on the Android Market.

AIR 3.1 brings immersive, beautiful apps powered by Flash to iPhone, iPad, Android phones and tablets, BlackBerry PlayBook, Barnes and Noble Nook tablets, and the Amazon Kindle Fire (whew!). As a developer, you can use Flash to create brilliant interactive experiences, games, and video and seamlessly deliver them to over 1 billion people: in the browser on 99% of PCs and via app stores to over 350 million iOS, Android and BlackBerry smartphones and tablets.

As we’ve mentioned before, we’re focusing on enabling amazing Flash based experiences via apps on phones and tablets, and this release will be the last major version of the mobile browser plug-in. The most stunning, innovative content and games for mobile devices are delivered and consumed through apps. The most impactful, engaging experiences on the desktop are delivered through the browser. With Flash Player for desktop and AIR apps for mobile, Flash allows you to craft and deliver beautiful experiences for both.

Flash developers are taking us on adventures across breathtaking worlds in best-selling games like Machinarium, a Flash-enabled game that became the best-selling app across the iTunes App Store, BlackBerry App World, and Mac App Store.

We’ve seen kids (and kids at heart) find hidden treasure bringing their drawings to life in interactive books like Kidoodle Apps’ Pirate Scribblebeard’s Treasure for iPad and Android tablets.

And we’ve had delightful fun getting lost in helping a sheep find his way in Aardman Animations’ Home Sheep Home 2 for iPad.

You guys are crafting experiences that show how creative, fun, and amazing mobile apps can be. And we know you’re just getting started.

Tom Nguyen
Sr. Product Manager, Flash Runtime

We’ve received some questions regarding support for Adobe Flash Player 11.1 and AIR 3.1 on the Galaxy Nexus. To be clear, the Galaxy Nexus does not initially support Adobe Flash Player 11.1 and AIR 3.1. As we previously communicated in a blog post, devices and software updates from our partners which introduce new technologies are being developed on varied schedules that are different from our own, which means that the Adobe runtimes may not always be optimized or supported on devices until a subsequent release. We will provide a minor update to the runtimes to support the Galaxy Nexus in December.

Greg DeMichillie is the Senior Director of Product Management for Interactive Development

As a follow-up to the highly anticipated release of Adobe Flash Player 11 and Adobe AIR 3, which included next-generation technologies like the gorgeous, cinematic 2D and 3D hardware accelerated graphics of Stage 3D, we’re pleased to announce the availability of Flash Player 11.1 and Adobe AIR 3.1 for desktops and mobile devices.

As we communicated yesterday, we see a very bright future for both Flash and HTML5. We’re committed to helping Flash developers deliver stunning, immersive experiences across devices — helping you reach over a billion people across desktop browsers and create Flash-based apps to reach over 350 million smartphones and tablets this year alone. It’s great to see the thousands of amazing Flash-based apps you’ve already published across all of the major app stores — for iPhone, iPad, Android phones and tablets, the BlackBerry PlayBook, Barnes and Noble Nook tablets, and the Amazon Kindle Fire. Whether in the browser on 99% of PCs or through apps for phones and tablets, Flash bridges the gap between your incredible ideas and what over a billion people can experience.

We’re also excited about the new innovations like Stage 3D hardware acceleration. Only a month after its launch, it now enables beautiful, fluid, next-generation visuals for more people on the web than any other technology. And we’ll continue driving innovation in Flash and by contributing to web standards. Now that we are focusing on enabling Flash-based content via apps on mobile devices, this release will be the last version of the browser plug-in for mobile devices. We’ll continue to provide bug fixes and security updates for the mobile browser plug-in — and we’ll deliver new Flash innovations for smartphones and tablets via AIR, allowing you to take full advantage of Flash on iOS, Android, and BlackBerry PlayBook devices.

This minor update to Flash Player and AIR includes the following features for developers:

• Updated iOS 5 native extensions for Adobe AIR: Flash-based apps can now take advantage of new services provided by iOS 5. Create apps that integrate the latest iOS 5 capabilities like iCloud and iMessage.
• Updated Native text input UI for Android:  Android apps can now take advantage of the same native text input controls provided to BlackBerry Tablet OS and iOS operating systems to provide platform-specific user interaction behaviors such as magnification and text selection.

Engaging experiences. Everywhere.

Man your battle stations! Check out Age of Defenders, a new Flash-based, multiplayer tower defense game that reaches Android tablets, iPad, and desktops. Packaged with Adobe AIR and built with Adobe Flash Builder and Flash Professional, it benefits from a common Flash code base to provide real-time gameplay with your friends and immersive, optimized experiences across over a billion PCs and tablets.

To learn more about how the game was created, take a look at Adobe gaming evangelist Tom Krcha’s interview with the developer.

We’re working on an ambitious future for Flash, with a lot of great things in store for the community. But in addition to the big advances, we’re also thinking about the small game changers: Here is a sneak peak of a highly requested feature in early stage development for game developers – mouse lock, which will allow you to create immersive, panoramic games never before possible across most of the web. If you would like to provide feedback on other upcoming Flash Player and AIR features, we invite you to apply to participate in the Flash Runtimes private pre-release program.

Learn more

To learn more about developing Flash-based apps for iOS, Android, or BlackBerry PlayBook devices, check out the following resources:

• Apple iOS, iPhone, iPad app development
• Android app development
• BlackBerry app development
• Native extensions for Adobe AIR
• Gaming Solutions
• Adobe AIR showcase apps for mobile developers

And we’ll continue to provide the best tools for getting your creative, stunning ideas everywhere. We’re building foundations for your awesome experiences.

Tom Nguyen
Sr. Product Manager, Flash Runtime

As a long time Flash developer who loves Flash, I can tell you that what is happening right now is a good thing.

First, we are making bold moves like stopping the development of the browser plug-in on mobile browsers in favor of investing further in Flash-based apps packaged with AIR. Playing existing content sounds like a great idea on paper, but we know it doesn’t always work that way — you need to author for mobile and think for mobile, but from talking to customers and looking at content today, we realize that very few people are targeting the plug-in on mobile browsers.

Flash developers have always created some of the most stunning, immersive, emotional experiences on the web. They’ve always pushed the cutting edge, with few restrictions. But mobile is different, and developers need to adapt to different constraints and affordances. Flash lets you do that, whether you are taking advantage of efficient hardware accelerated video playback or native support for features like multitouch and accelerometers. But it’s costly to create beautiful experiences optimized for mobile browsers — a cost that doesn’t make sense if people using one of the most popular mobile platforms can’t see the content you create.

Existing content for desktops didn’t always look as magical on phones as people were used to seeing with Flash Player on their desktops. Content optimized for desktops with big screens and beefy processors can’t look as good on a phone or a tablet it was never designed for. This really had an impact on the trust that people had in Flash, and this perception made it hard to start new projects optimized for mobile browsers. There was just no appetite to even try doing this.

In contrast, you guys create super nice Flash-based apps packaged with AIR and delivering them to app stores across iOS, Android, and BlackBerry devices – by the end of this year, you will be able to reach over 350 million tablets and smartphones. Have you seen an article from a journalist saying that Machinarium, Comb over Charlie, or TweetHunt are horrible ? No, people love those games. Your work fits the trend the entire industry is seeing: even as we’re excited about improvements in mobile browsers, the most compelling, immersive experiences for mobile devices are delivered through apps, optimized from the ground up for mobile. We’re helping you guys leverage your talent – the same skills in ActionScript and tooling – to reach that huge, growing market of smartphone and tablet users with amazing apps. Flash makes it possible for developers who craft beautiful desktop experiences to deliver great mobile app experiences. We are going to really focus on that, creating the best solution to build stunning interactive content, games, and video apps across all screens.

Flash Player on the desktop continues to show a path for the consistent, super duper experiences that are impossible to deliver to over a billion people with any other technology. For example, Flash Player 11 was released only a month ago, and it now enables fluid, cinematic hardware accelerated 2D and 3D visuals for more people on the web than any other technology. Flash Player uniquely does for the desktop what apps do for phones and tablets: it helps ensure that what you imagine is exactly what your users will see. Flash Player remains the best technology for delivering premium experiences on the desktop, period. Focusing helps us make sure that we continue to drive that continued innovation.

We are not stepping out of the mobile space with Flash, we are just focusing on what makes sense and where Flash looks great.

In the long term, we’re actively working on an ambitious future for Flash. The implementation details may change, as we’ve been talking about today. We believe that the DNA of Flash doesn’t reside in those implementation details, but in our promise to make it easy to create and deliver the most amazing experiences everywhere. We’re focusing on fulfilling that promise, and we’re excited to see what the future – and our community – will bring.

Thibault Imbert
Sr. Product Manager | Flash Runtime

Adobe MAX is here, and we’ve got a lot of news to share. Today we’re releasing Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 — you can download the release starting at 9:00 PM Pacific today. As we announced previously, there are lots of new features in Flash Player 11 and AIR 3, and one of the newest features that’s getting a lot of buzz is hardware accelerated 2D and 3D graphics rendering through Stage 3D, which will be available on Mac OS, Windows and connected televisions. It redefines what’s possible across the web. With up to 1,000 times faster rendering performance over Flash Player 10 and AIR 2, developers can animate millions of objects with smooth 60 frames per second rendering and deliver cinematic, console-quality games both in browsers and in apps. And a production release with support for Stage 3D for mobile platforms including Android, Apple iOS and BlackBerry Tablet OS is expected in an upcoming release. For more information about Stage 3D and to see some sample apps, check out the Stage 3D games on the Adobe Developer Center.

Additionally, we’re excited that “Proscenium,” a 3D framework technology preview, is available on Adobe Labs. Proscenium will allow developers using Flash Builder to rapidly prototype experiences focused on simple content interaction and display, whether for simple games, visualization, or high-quality rendering of small object collections. Check it out and let us know what you think.

We previously announced the availability of the Starling 2D framework for stunning hardware accelerated, fluid 2D graphics, and you can check out a new game developed using the Starling framework, Whack! from BxyB. There’s also new information for available for developing using 3D frameworks like Alternativa3D, Away3D, Flare3D, Mixamo, and Minko.

And lastly, we want to extend a welcome to our newest developers and colleagues from Nitobi, makers of PhoneGap, which will soon become part of the Adobe family. With all of our announcements today, we believe developers will benefit from a workflow that allows them to choose the right tool for the right job, and we’ll continue to keep driving innovation in Flash so you can push the edge of the envelope for immersive experiences online.

We’ve already seen some early previews of games and apps that will be available in market soon, and there are now over 10,000 AIR apps in mobile markets.

We can’t wait to see what you’ll create. And there’s more news to come tomorrow, so stay tuned. You can watch the second day MAX keynote streamed live at 10am PDT, and be sure to check out the Flash Platform Blog for the latest updates.

Tom Nguyen
Sr. Product Manager, Flash Player & AIR / @tomng

Customer feedback helps us evolve Flash so that we can help developers and designers push what’s possible for over a billion people on the web. Adobe Labs is an invaluable channel for us to engage with our community, and it’s where we share some of our early investigations, showcasing unsupported previews of experimental technologies. Some of these previews go on to become fully supported features or products, and others are phased out after we’ve had the opportunity to learn from them, allowing us to prioritize new product innovations.

In advance of releasing the next-generation Flash runtimes, Flash Player 11 and AIR 3, we want to share that we will soon be winding down our Labs preview of “Alchemy.”

We released Alchemy on Labs over two years ago as an experimental prototype that allowed developers to leverage C/C++ code in Flash Player and AIR. We have not updated the original Alchemy prototype, and while we noted from the beginning that it should not be relied upon for production content, we’ve received persistent requests from developers asking for official support in the Flash runtimes.

We’ve been listening and have decided to invest in creating an improved version of Alchemy, which we plan to release as part of a paid production offering for commercial development. We intend to make non-commercial use free of charge.

The production release will offer significantly better performance and productivity over the Labs prototype. By re-architecting major portions of the technology, we aim to enable code execution approaching native performance, scalable support for large code bases, full debugging support, up to 75% reduction in code size, and seamless integration with ActionScript – all while reaching virtually every connected computer on the web.

This new offering will be available with a future update to the Flash runtimes, and we are temporarily including the prototype in the initial releases of Flash Player 11 and AIR 3. We continue to advise developers not to use the prototype for production content. Content created with the prototype for Flash Player 10.x and AIR 2.x will continue to work in future versions of Flash Player and AIR. The new production version of Alchemy will be needed to deliver Alchemy-enabled content that requires Flash Player 11 or AIR 3 and beyond.

In other Adobe Labs updates, we’re excited about today’s announcement that Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 will be available in early October. They introduce full GPU-accelerated graphics rendering with the new Stage 3D API previewed on Adobe Labs, providing 1000x faster rendering performance over Flash Player 10 and AIR 2. Stage 3D takes the throttle off developer and designer creativity, enabling stunning content that can animate millions of objects with silky smooth 60 FPS rendering. Check out our announcement blog post to learn more about this and the other advanced new capabilities in Flash Player 11 and AIR 3.

We’re using the spirit of innovation behind Adobe Labs to change what people can do on the web, and technologies like Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 will enable a new class of incredible immersive experiences. We have a lot more in store as we continue our work to enable millions of developers to reach over a billion people with stunning applications – from games and premium video to sophisticated, data-driven content. We look forward to sharing – and showing – more about the future at Adobe MAX next month.

Update – Nov 22, 2011: Starting with Flash Player 11.2 and AIR 3.2, content targeting Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 (i.e., content using SWF version 13 and above) will not support the experimental Alchemy prototype. Existing Alchemy experiments targeting Flash Player 10.x and AIR 2.x are unaffected. We’re continuing work on the new production version of Alchemy for next year that will allow developers to publish Alchemy-enabled content targeting Flash Player 11 or AIR 3 and beyond. And if you’re interested in Alchemy, we invite you to participate in our survey. We appreciate hearing your thoughts and feedback!