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Adobe AIR

Adobe AIR

Overview

Recent Reviews

Adobe AIR

8 out of 10
July 28, 2021
Incentivized
We have used Adobe AIR to help our team build out different applications on windows, mac and android. It has amazing capabilities and …
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Pricing

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Adobe AIR

Adobe AIR

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  • No setup fee

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  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Product Demos

Adobe AIR 3.3 Video on iPad Retina, Android - Stage3D UI, OSMF StageVideo, HTML5

YouTube

Android Tooling Demo

YouTube

Adobe AIR VideoTexture Demo

YouTube

Adobe Air on iOS Game demo at 30 FPS

YouTube

Axe Condenadas - Adobe AIR demo app.

YouTube

Adobe Air Demo on Android/Nexus One!

YouTube
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Product Details

What is Adobe AIR?

Adobe AIR Technical Details

Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(68)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-3 of 3)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
July 29, 2021

Adobe AIR: A good solution for cross-platform deployment

JM
John Mihaila
Software Manager
Santa Clara (Government Administration, 10,001+ employees)
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Develop and deploy rich Internet applications by combining JavaScript, HTML, adobe flash Professional, and ActionScript. End-users can access these applications from many types of devices including laptops, desktops, smartphones, and tablets. This cross-operating-system runtime system is currently used by the IT department and addresses two principal problems: cross-system functionality portability and ease of deployment.
Pros and Cons
  • Runs on Windows, Mac OS, Android and Apple iOS.
  • Allows developers to use tools such as Adobe Dreamweaver or Flash Professional and even text editor to develop an app.
  • Adobe AIR runtime and AIR SDK are free.
  • Android widgets are currently not supported in AIR.
  • Not all Adobe Creative Suite applications are compatible with AIR.
  • No support for desktop Linux.
Likelihood to Recommend
If you need to quickly develop and deploy rich Internet applications that run on a broad range of devices, applications that offer basic functionality including graphics, transactional, lookup, dialog windows, etc., then Adobe AIR works well. It does use proprietary technology and in some cases, it is CPU and memory-intensive and can slow things down.
Most Important Features
  • Cross-platform functionality.
  • Integrates with some Adobe Creative Suite apps.
  • Supported by third-party plug-ins.
Return on Investment
  • Allows easy porting of functionality and look and feel to many diverse platforms.
  • Shorten development and deployment time.
  • Reduced training and support costs by re-using common widgets.
Alternatives Considered
Adobe AIR does not support Windows phones but works well on both Android and Apple iOS. It enables developers to build and deploy good quality applications to mobile platforms for a majority of mobile users and allows developers to build working prototypes in a relatively short period of time. It also helps if the developer is familiar with Flash.
Other Software Used
Adobe Dreamweaver, Adobe Acrobat Reader DC, Adobe Animate (formerly Flash)
June 17, 2016

Adobe Air - An extremely powerful tool whose heyday has come and gone

Verified User
Engineer in Engineering
Computer Games Company, 501-1000 employees
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Adobe Air is no longer being used by Disney Interactive. In the past, it was used to quickly build and release high quality games for iOS and Android mobile platforms. Starting two years ago, Disney caught wind that Adobe Air was no longer going to be supported by Adobe in a capacity that we felt was worth our investment. At the same time, both Apple and Unity dropped support for Flash, and we made the executive decision to completely switch our tech stack over to Unity, as it offered much better support and arguably better performance for about the same level of time investment.
Pros and Cons
  • Adobe Air helped us very quickly build and iterate on games for both mobile and web.
  • Adobe Air gave our artists good integrated tools and a pipeline to make high quality 2D static and animated assets that were relatively easy to get into the game.
  • Adobe Air allowed us to deploy to both Android and iOS platforms with relative ease, without needing to have an Apple laptop to build from.
  • Adobe Air - at the time - was extremely difficult to get into in a non-professional sense. The industry standard tools for Air (Flash Builder and Flash Professional) were far too expensive to warrant purchasing as an independent developer wanting to try the technology. At the same time, Unity Free version provided a very easy way for curious developers to explore their tech with relatively few strings attached. As a result, it became increasingly more easy for us to find talented Unity engineers than Flash engineers, especially with the industry basically predicting the imminent death of Flash.
  • Adobe Air's iOS crash logs were almost completely useless for debugging. Because Air used its own iOS compiler (which admittedly DID give us the ability to build iOS games without a Mac), symbolicating crash logs for Air apps gave you nothing of use whatsoever. As a result, a lot of crash bugs on our end (mostly caused by native extensions) went unfixed for the lifetime of our products.
  • On the subject of native extensions - they were absolutely horrible to write and debug in Air mobile. There was VERY little documentation regarding how to build and maintain native extensions. As a result, being the engineer assigned to native extensions was about as exciting as being the janitor assigned to cleaning the toilets at Taco Bell.
Likelihood to Recommend
I still recommend new up and coming engineers to give Air and Flash a shot, because it's still pretty easy to learn and quick to develop for. I'm much less likely these days, as the heyday of Air has mostly come to an end, but I still feel like ActionScript and Air give newcomers a fairly intuitive way to build fast little games and apps to deploy on the web as well as mobile. I'm not up to date on the current pricing plans for the industry tools, but I can say that neither exorbitantly priced software nor expensive subscription models are any way to get new developers to adopt your tech. Take a hint from Unity and Unreal and let the tiny indies develop for free.
Return on Investment
  • Disney Interactive ended up ultimately having to pivot drastically to switch entirely over to Unity for our tech stack due to lack of support for Air. During this transition, we lost a huge amount of good talent, and were forced to shutter many projects.
  • Prior to the switch to Unity, Air allowed us to quickly port several web games to mobile after overhauling the graphics to be bitmap rather than vector based.
  • Air allowed a small number of our developers to be able to transition to mobile before the elimination of all web flash positions.
Alternatives Considered
Originally, Adobe Air was a great choice for us to build mobile titles from prior web titles when compared to tools such as native iOS with cocos2d. We were able to get games stood up much faster than our competition and out to market to make money. That said, as Unity improved its 2D capabilities, we ended up switching over to that as the support, performance, and tools ultimately eclipsed what was available to us with Flash/Air.
Other Software Used
June 10, 2016

Adobe AIR is a solid mobile app development environment if you know how to use it.

Verified User
Employee in Other
Higher Education Company, 1001-5000 employees
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
I previously taught Adobe AIR to students interested in making mobile game apps. I also occasionally use it when making my own video game apps on the side. However, I now teach Unity and tend to use that technology for side projects as well. It's just easier to use and tends to have better performance.
Pros and Cons
  • Adobe AIR supports a lot of commonly needed features for mobile app development.
  • It is fairly stable and consistent once you learn how to use it.
  • It is cross-platform and is supported by some useful third-party plugins.
  • It is cumbersome to update if you use Flash Builder.
  • It still relies on Flash and vector graphics and therefore can have poor performance unless you are using a third-party library such as Starling.
  • It is updated somewhat slowly and is still missing some useful features such as controller support.
Likelihood to Recommend
Adobe AIR is well-suited for a developer who is already familiar with Flash and AS3. It is well-suited for 2D app development using Starling or another third-party graphics library. However, to be used appropriately and avoid errors and poor performance, a basic understanding of programming principles is needed, so it's not great for a designer who hasn't studied a lot of coding.
Return on Investment
  • Adobe AIR was great for me because I had more experience with Flash and AS3 than any other programming environment.
  • I was able to use it for freelance jobs that earned fiscal income and programming experience.
  • It helped me carve out a niche and become a respected faculty member at the Academy of Art University.
Alternatives Considered
  • Unity
Adobe AIR is more friendly to a serious programmer because it supports core programming methodology in a way that Unity does not. Both AIR and Unity have a hidden underlying layer of event management code that can add performance costs. However, Unity is more friendly to a beginner or a designer who has not studied programming principles. It has better error reporting and documentation.
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