Adobe recently released in Labs the new version of the Flex framework codenamed Hero. Originally there was an intention to develop a special version of the framework dedicated to mobile devices under the codename Slider, but all the proposed features are now merged into a single framework that will make it easy to develop once and deploy the same application for different screens and devices on the desktop and mobile. You can learn more about this new update to the framework on Hero’s page on the Adobe Open Source portal and Hero’s page on Adobe Labs.

The saga of the Flash iPhone compiler may be coming to a close. Upon the announcement of the new iPhone SDK which included terms banning the use of translation compilers such as the one including in the upcoming Flash CS5, the community was outraged and Adobe ended up announcing that it will stop investing in the development of the iPhone compiler, even though the new Flash CS5 will still ship with the compiler. Instead Adobe stating that it will focus its efforts for developing the Flash Player 10.1 and Adobe AIR for the Android.

Rumors are going around the internet that Adobe might sue Apple over its new restrictive SDK license, but there are no official statements from Adobe at this time.

The new announcements for focusing on Android are not really a compensation for Flash developers who were looking forward to start making mobile applications soon, especially as the Flash Player 10.1 is still not actually publicly available even for developers. However, I believe that Android has a big opportunity for being a serious competitor to the iPhone and with the Flash Player 10.1 and AIR for Mobile devices Flash developers would have a number of options for delivering Flash content to it. Lets just hope that the new Flash Player for Android comes out soon.

The new Flash CS5 is expected to be released sometime in May.

All the hype about Flash Player 10.1 for mobile devices made a lot of people forget about all the other feature phones that do not have big screens or powerful processors and which will never be capable for running the full Flash experience. For these other phones Adobe is going to release the fourth edition of Flash Lite, which for the first time will support ActionScript 3.0. There are no details about this at all on Adobe’s own website, but according to Blogger Anand Joshi, the new Flash Lite 4 is now available for phone manufacturers from Calsoft – one of Adobe’s partners.

Anand points out that Flash Player 10.1 is merely a plugin for the browser, while Flash Lite 4 is both a plug and a standalone application. The fact that it also resides outside the browser makes it possible for the phone manufacturers to add device-specific capabilities to it, while the same cannot be done for Flash Player 10.1.

You can read more about this on Anand’s blog and on Scott Janousek’s blog as well.

Apple revealed its new iPhone OS 4.0 yesterday and along with it released a new beta SDK for developers. The new SDK came with a revised license agreement that prohibits linking to “Documented APIs through an intermediary or compatibility layer” - which is the method used by Flash CS5 to compile iPhone applications.

Though CS5 end-result iPhone applications compile into the same format as those made with Apple’s own XCode, Apple doesn’t want anyone to use any third party tool to make these applications, such tools include Flash CS5 and MonoTouch. Currently, it is very easy to tell if an application was made using Flash CS5 as the .app file can be searched for strings identifying the development toolkit.

This is a critical issue for Adobe and all Flash developers who hoped that they would be able to use their existing skills to create applications for the iPhone. Apple’s decision seems more like a personal feud against Adobe which has promoted Flash CS5 capability to compile iPhone applications as the primary feature of the new release. The ban cannot have come at a worse time as Adobe plans to unveil the new CS5 in four days.

The position of Adobe regarding this new development is not clear, they have issued a statement saying that they are aware of the new license language and that they still plan to continue develop the iPhone packager for Flash CS5. Even if Adobe releases Flash CS5 with this feature, that will not change the fact that Apple can easily identify the violating applications and reject them.

In theory it might be possible to translate Flash iPhone applications into native Object-C code and therefore avoiding the violation of the license agreement, but achieving that in practice is a different story.

Adobe is still going to unveil the new Flash CS5 and the rest of the CS5 suite in four days.

You can learn more about this on Daring Fireball and TechCrunch.

Adobe unveiled in the recent Mobile World Congress the mobile version of AIR for the Android OS. Like its desktop counterpart, AIR on mobile devices would allow developers to create applications with access to the phone memory and other system attributes and which can be deployed easily on all mobile operating systems that support the runtime.

During the event demos of AIR were shown on the Motorola DROID, but the runtime would also be available for other operating systems such as Blackberry. The new Flash CS5 Professional will allow exporting a mobile application created into a native iPhone application or an AIR application for a mobile device making it very easy to deploy the same project on multiple platforms simultaneously.

You can read more about this and watch demo videos at the Flash Mobile Blog.

There still isn’t any official release date for Flash CS5 Professional – the tool that will enable developers to create native iPhone applications or AIR applications for mobile devices.

The recently released Google Nexus One phone runs Android 2.1 OS which has support for the Flash Player 10.1 in its browser. Unlike some previous Android devices, the Nexus One is also equipped with the fast Snapdragon processor. This should enable this phone to deliver a Flash experience on the go similar to what you can achieve on the desktop.

This could be the most interesting mobile phone for Flash developers at the moment, as the promised ability to export iPhone applications cannot still be seen before Flash CS5 is released. You can develop Flash applications for the Google Nexus One using your current Flash authoring tools.

Lee Brimelow is back again with a short FAQ on Flash iPhone development that explains a bit about the functionality of Flash iPhone applications and other questions related to the compiling process. The highlight of the FAQ is that Lee expects the public beta version of Flash CS5 to be out before the end of 2009 – We are already in December, so this means it should be out this month if nothing goes wrong! You can learn more from this FAQ by checking it out here.

Lee BrimeLow of the Flash Blog has posted a nice video tutorial on how to create a native iPhone application using the upcoming Flash Professional CS5. This tutorial shows how similar the process for creating an iPhone application is to process for creating AIR applications.

Just like on-device testing using Xcode, those wishing to test their Flash-created iPhone application would have to acquire the $100 developer license from Apple in order to be able to test their applications on their actual devices or in order to distribute them through the iTunes store.

Learn more about this by viewing the video tutorial here.

Adobe released today the beta editions of Adobe Air 2.0 and Flash Player 10.1, the next two major releases for both technologies. The most major feature added to both is the support for multi-touch input – which, however, cannot be used without having a device that support multi-touch such HP TouchSmart or a Dell Latitude XT2 running Windows 7. The FAQs say that you should be able to interact with the gestures of the multi-touch pads of Macbook Pros, but I couldn’t get mine to work with the samples available online.

Other additions to AIR 2.0 include support for the detection of mass storage devices, access to raw microphone data, the ability to open a file with its default application and other new improvements. These editions are going to help increase the popularity of using the Adobe AIR platform for creating cross-platform desktop applications with online functionality.

The new release of Flash Player 10.1 is meant to be the first step for creating a consistent Flash experience across desktop and mobile platforms, however, the beta for this edition of the player is now only available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux operating systems. Though not available for mobile phones yet, but this player should be the one to properly allow the use of AS3 on mobile devices.

You can check out the demos by visiting the links above and check out sample movies to showcase the capability of the new players. I test Adobe AIR 2.0 on my Macbook Pro and it seems to work just fine.

In addition to its efforts to appear on the iPhone and Android, Adobe has announced in a recent developers conference its cooperation with RIM to bring the full Flash Player to the Blackberry platform.

According to Comscore there are more than 14 million blackberry devices out there and Adobe believes this to be a serious market to tap into.

In addition to the announcement of the full Flash Player, Adobe also announced its intention to Adobe Air and Flex Mobile platform for Blackberry, making RIM the first hardware manufacturer to publicly announce its support of these two new mobile technologies from Adobe.

You can learn more about this announcement at the official Flash Mobile Blog.