Problem:
A big thanks to the Magical Hobo for creating the c++ code for this. The only problem is that the code was built in debug mode and requires Visual Studio and the MSVCP100D.dll. Great for people who want to dive into the c++ code but it adds a lot of upfront time in getting everything setup.

Solution:
After downloading the project from GitHub, removing all debug dependencies and re-building in release mode, the ANE was ready for use without Visual Studio. If you’d like the full c++ source, checkout the Magical Hobo’s source on GitHub.

More information on Adobe Native Extensions:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/air/native-extensions-for-air.html

Link to original c++ source code by the Magical Hobo:
http://blog.magicalhobo.com/2011/10/01/air-3-native-extension-example-pentablet/

How do you know if your device can detect pressure?
Open up PhotoShop, select a brush, click on the pressure sensitivity icon and start drawing. If PhotoShop can detect the sensitivity than you should be good to go.

Requirements:
> Touch sensitive capable device.
> Windows OS
> Flash Builder 4.6
> AIR 3.1

Download the ANE:
http://www.blackcj.com/blog/wp-content/swfs/PenTabletLib.ane

Last but not least, the PlayBook (or any 7″ tablet really). Tablets at this size are much better for portability compared to the 10″ & 12″ tablets. Reading books on the go, playing games and general web browsing are the best uses. When I’m on the go and don’t need a laptop, the 7″ inch tablet in my device of choice.

In the future, it would be great to see a device that is the best of both worlds. If I could dock my iPad and switch it over to OS X, that would dramatically increase the usefulness of the device. The same goes for my Eee Slate, it would be great to have a more battery conscious OS while on the go and run full Windows 7 when docked. So far, Windows 8 is the only thing on the horizon that looks promising in this respect. Lets hope they don’t mess that up!

Without further delay, let’s take a look at the feature rundown of these three devices:

	iPad 2	Asus Eee Slate	PlayBook
Cost	$499*	$1049	$299
RAM	1GB	4GB	1GB
Memory	16GB	64GB	16GB
Included Accessories	Charging Cable	BT Keyboard, Leather Case, Charging Cable	Charging Cable, Glove Case
Operating System	iOS 5	Windows 7	QNX
Input	Touch	Pen + Touch	Touch
Touch Friendly OS	Yes	Mediocre (Taps mimic mouse.)	Yes
Pen Friendly OS	No	Yes	No
Battery Life	8 hours	4 hours	8 hours
Amazon Rating	4.2 stars	4.2 stars	4.0 stars
Open Market	No	Yes	No
Screen Size	10 inch	12 inch	7 inch
Ports	Audio	Mini HDMI, 2x USB, Audio, SD	Audio, Micro HDMI
Mouse Enabled	No	Yes	Select Bluetooth Mice

*Keep in mind the 64GB iPad with keyboard, DVI adapter, leather case and warranty ends up being $886.

What do I use the Eee Slate for?

> Primary computing device for work
> Adobe Creative Suite, word processing, Amazon onDemand, web applications…
> Complete laptop replacement

Eee Slate complaints?

> The OS could be much more touch intuitive (hopefully Widows 8 will help with this)
> No docking station

What do I use the iPad for?

> Testing apps
> Listening to Pandora via Bluetooth on my stereo
> Multi-player games like marbles
> Writing down quick notes

iPad complaints:

> Lack of iPad specific apps – most are for iPhone
> Bluetooth is hidden too deep in the menu

What do I use the PlayBook for?

> Testing apps
> Reading books on Kobo
> Playing single player games
> Taking pictures / video on the go

PlayBook complaints:

> Lack of killer apps like Pandora and Kindle. The browser almost makes up for this but falls a bit short.
> Can’t connect to most bluetooth devices

What do you use your tablet for? Does your device collect dust in the corner or does it get regular use?

“HTML5 promises to be the hot new platform for online games. HTML5 games work on computers, smartphones, and tablets – including iPhones and iPads. Be one of the first developers to build HTML5 games today and be ready for tomorrow!”

That’s cool! You mean it’s actually possible to build a game that works well in the browser and on an iPad? Well, surprisingly enough, according to this book the answer is NO. Out of the 9 code examples, only one of them even rendered on my iPad 2. The game that worked on my iPad was technically done in CSS3 and also looks very bad on my Android. The book has some great examples and if you’re looking to build HTML5 games for desktop browsers, I would recommend it. If you’re looking to build HTML5 games for mobile devices, stay away from this one.

What the publisher and many people fail to realize is that HTML5 does NOT equal mobile. I haven’t seen a single HTML5 page that’s looked good across devices. Not a single one. SlideShare recently converted their entire site to “HTML5″ – according to the marketing team. A quick look at the doctype on the page reveals… wait for it, XHTML! Marketers are sucking the life out of a buzzword and lying through the teeth about it.

When every example of HTML5 either has horrible cross browser support, doesn’t render on mobile devices or isn’t actually HTML5, I wonder what the web has come to. Has everyone decided it’s just easier to lie to clients, the general public and fellow developers? Or are the stakeholders so blind to technology that they insist on something that doesn’t even exist? Is it really so terrible to maintain a mobile version of your website along side a desktop version?

Rather than trying to make radical predictions and promises about the future of the web, maybe we should try educating clients about new technologies. Instead of shoving a round peg into a square hole, let’s create the solution that best fits the business needs. Lying today is only going to give technology a bad reputation in the future and hurt clients in the long run. It’s sad when an otherwise good book is poisoned by lies from the marketing team.

Here is a link to the book:
HTML5 Games Development by Example

What? AIR Mobile User Group
When? Tuesday, September 13th from 7-9pm
Where? Zeus Jones in Uptown, Minneapolis

We’ll have free pizza at the meeting and a social hour after the meeting at the Bulldog in Uptown. Please RSVP by posting a comment to this thread or on the Facebook MN.swf group. If all goes well, we’ll be meeting up every month to discuss a new mobile topic. Future topics include:

>Mobile Arduino integration
>Performance optimizations
>AIR 3.0 features
>Marketing and monetization of apps
>Building mobile games with AIR
>Multi-screen developmen
>And more…

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to learn about mobile development with AIR. With version 3.0 around the corner, cross platform development is going to continue to grow!

The Venue
Before we jump into the tech tips, I wanted to mention that this was the coolest venue I’ve ever been to for a conference. They rented out a huge night club and transformed dance floors and lounges into speaker rooms. Cotton candy and popcorn were available at all times. A few shots from the event:

Click the image to enlarge.

The PlayBook
Both Julian Dolce and Rajeev Messand uncovered some great tips and tricks for PlayBook development. First, Julian discussed how to use the Throttle mode to keep your application running in the background. This is key for anyone playing music, tracking GPS or that need background services running. He also talked about how to tap into the system media to ensure sound stops when another application (like a YouTube video) starts playing audio.

Rajeev talked about creating applications using Flash / HTML5 with Webworks. Did you know the BAR extension is really just a ZIP file? You can extract the contents to ensure your application has been signed correctly and to adjust meta data if needed. Another great he mentioned is to navigate the file structure by typing file:/// in the web browser. It’s an interesting little trick to find out whats on your machine.

Adobe AIR
I skipped out on the keynote but caught the tail end of Lee Brimelow’s talk and attended a full session on devices with Renaun Erickson. Adobe was really pushing both Molehill and multi-platform development. They had a 3D demo running on the first generation Galaxy Tab showing that Flash truly rocks on mobile devices without taxing the battery or processor. Renaun outlined the full road map for Flash / AIR on all platforms. His presentation is definitely worth embedding here:

Brass Monkey
Chris Allen showed off some really cool games including a Star Wars 3D shooter and Smuggle Truck err… Snuggle Truck for mobile devices. The best part? When connected up to a computer, the games turned into controllers that could be used to play the desktop version! This is some seriously cool shit. The mobile applications are built natively in iOS and Android with the desktop receiver is built using Unity 3D. Both the Unity plugin and an ActionScript version are coming soon. Check out the demos on the Brass Monkey website and download Snuggle Truck for your iPhone today!

Flash Video and Lazy Programming
Robert Reinhardt did a great job comparing HTML5 and Flash video. As he mentioned many times throughout his presentation, HTML5 has a ways to go. Lack of captioning, full screen, DRM and codec support leave much to be desired of the new video tag. Luckily there is still plenty of time for the specs to be finalized. For now, only use HTML5 for simple video and use Flash when you need more.

Lazy programming was about how to be efficient so that you’re working less and enjoying it more. Key tips were to use tools to assist in programming, don’t fix every bug and always have a scope doc. Phillip Kerman concluded with comedy show on his handbill delivery system. Make sure to ask him for one the next time you see him.

Missed Sessions
A notable mention to the session that I wanted to see was Trainyard: a Flash Dev’s Journey to App Store Success with Matt Rix. I hope that Matt presents at a future conference so I can check that session out!

Conclusion
This was one of the best conferences I’ve been to in a while. Sessions were top notch with lots of new material, the event was great for networking and overall it was a blast.

Until next year!

Blitting – Moving Bitmaps

Attempting to move display objects around during transitions can be very slow and choppy. Moving Bitmaps is much faster and can provide a smooth animation. When using this technique there are two things to consider; speed and memory.

Speed
Creating BitmapData from a DisplayObject is CPU intensive. Your user will notice even a fraction of a second delay in a transition. One solution to this is to predict where the user will go and store the BitmapData up front. For example, you know the first page they will hit after the splash screen is the login page. While the user is on the splash screen take a snap shot of the login page. Once they’ve arrive at a new view, take a snap shot of the previous and next views.

Memory
BitmapData is expensive. Caching to much BitmapData is the fastest way to slow down and crash your app. Make sure to call destroy on any unused BitmapData or re-use the same two or three instances. Another technique is to use a matrix to take a picture of the screen at half the resolution. You save both processing power and memory when doing this. During transitions on a device with high DPI this is often un-noticed by the user.

How much memory are you using? Use the profiler in Flash Builder to check for leaks and check out Memory Doctor on the iOS store. Version 5 of iOS is said to include app memory monitoring as well.

More information on blitting can be found on Jesse Freeman’s blog: http://flash.developerartofwar.com/

CPU vs GPU

There are plenty of sites that explain the precise difference between these two rendering modes. In the end how should you decide? Guess and check. With AIR 2.7 increasing the performance of CPU on iOS by 4 times, I’ve found that many of my apps perform better and use less memory with CPU.

Run your app with one than check the other. I found that before 2.7, my app ran better with CPU mode for Android and Blackberry but faster in GPU mode on iOS. Now that 2.7 is out, it runs better with CPU on all three. Selecting GPU mode can cause the application to consume as much as twice the memory. My app used 100Mb of memory in GPU mode and only 56Mb in CPU mode.

Avoid Transparency Like the Plague

Changing the alpha on display objects will significantly cut the performance of your app. Keep everything at 100% alpha and minimize the number of transparent PNGs you use. Similar to alpha, adding filters to your display objects will also decrease performance and increase memory usage. Is that drop shadow, beveled, semi-transparent text really worth it?

Destroy Your Display Objects

This part gets complicated. It can be beneficial to re-use display objects rather than re-creating them, for example in a list control. One thing to keep in mind is that these controls consume lots of memory. Keeping a ScrollPane, List, Grid and Picker around in memory all at once will crash your app. Re-use instances when possible but never keep around expensive components when your done with them.

There are plenty more optimizations that you can make in the world of mobile. The list above is what got me through my latest app for a client. Flex Hero handles some of the transitions and memory management for you and with AIR 2.7 it performs quite well. Please post any additional optimizations you’ve found helpful when building mobile apps with AIR.

Overview:
The PlayBook is a 7 inch tablet that has a great browser and specs that compare with many of the other current generation tablets. The operating system is fast, responsive and hasn’t crashed once in the four days I’ve had the device. Task management is made simple and I really like how easy it is to switch between apps shut down an app. After using this device for even just a few minutes the gestures felt natural. I picked up a Xoom the next day and wanted to use the swipe gestures to navigate.

Video Demo: High Level Overview

Video Demo: Games

Video Demo: The Keyboard

The Good:
>Swipe gestures and multi-tasking actually feel like a tablet rather than a big phone
>The operating system is fast
>Full web browsing is great with both Flash and HTML5
>Over the AIR updates (approx 245 MB) that finish in under 30 minutes
>Battery life is great, even when viewing lots of Flash content in the web
>My preferred size is 7 inches for a tablet, on the bus I use my thumbs to type on the keyboard
>The web browsing experience is great, you don’t need a million apps with a browser like this
>Mirco HDMI out and micro USB port

The Bad:
>I tried connecting a Bluetooth stereo gateway and mouse with no luck
>Light boxes in HTML content don’t always play well with the keyboard
>The power button is hard to push, you won’t ever accidentally turn this thing on…
>Apps that force orientation change can be frustrating
>No removable battery
>Maximum timeout is 5 minutes

Getting Started:

First thing after turning the device on, it does an over the air update which takes about 30 min depending on your wifi connection speed. After the update there is a brief tutorial on how to use the swipe gestures followed by a form where you must enter an e-mail and password to create an app world account. After you create an account with your e-mail the device is ready to go.

When you plug the device into your computer for the first time it will show up as a CD Rom drive. How cool is that? Just run the auto run, install the drivers, re-plug the device and it’s recognized as a tablet with full file system access. Don’t have a computer? That’s fine. They PlayBook works out of the box without needing a computer. Don’t want to supply your credit card? That’s fine too. I’ve been downloading free apps and using the device without ever giving credit card info. When you want to purchase an app you have the option to use PayPal as well. The getting started experience was much better than Android and iOS which both require a credit card.

Power / Battery Life:

I was using the device quite frequently over a 48 hour period before having to charge it. The device is rated at 10 hours of continual use and has many power options that assist with customizing the device on performance vs. battery life. There are two options that are missing, the ability to set the screen timeout past 5 minutes and the ability to play music from the browser when the screen turns off. The built in music player will play with the screen off but music playing in the browser stops when the screen times out (after 5 minutes). I’d imagine this is fairly easy to fix on RIM’s part, hopefully we’ll see a solution for this in a future OS release. For now, you’ll have to stick with the built in music player or tap your device every 5 minutes when playing Pandora in the browser.

Notice: The tablet will not charge via standard USB while the device is on. Batteries in all tablets have a much higher drain than phones and a much higher capacity (5300mAh vs 1200mAh). Since USB only supplies a max of 500mA the charge rate is slower than the consumption rate of the device. Basically it would be like trying to charge your laptop via USB, which you’d never expect to be able to do. Charge the device while it’s on is the supplied 5V, 1.8A charger or try using a high powered USB port.

The App World:

The App World is very easy to navigate and has what I would consider a large amount of apps for a new to market device. The apps range in quality but there are definitely a number of great apps in the market already. Apps range in size from 1MB (Doodle Blast) to 343MB (Need for Speed). The update process is simple and easy.

Many of the base applications like Twitter and Gmail are in the browser right now instead of in an app. I actually prefer this. The JavaScript and Flash rendering on the device is great. I was able to navigate and write an entire blog post using WordPress in the browser on the device. Aside from light boxes acting a little goofy, web browsing is the way to go for apps that you might be missing. When I can play games, watch tv and check my mail in the browser, why do I need an app for that?

The one app / webpage that is missing right now is Netflix. They use Silverlight which isn’t supported on the PlayBook and they don’t have an app. Every other webpage I frequent works great.

Swipe Gestures / Multi-tasking:

After trying out an iPad2 and Xoom, the PlayBook felt the most like a tablet. Why is that? Mostly due to the swipe gestures and multi-tasking. I know the iPad2 has 5 finger gestures to navigate apps and both have multi-tasking. The PlayBook just makes it really easy to visualize your apps. This is one is going to be more of a personal preference and something you’ll have to experience for yourself.

When you hold a PlayBook, swipe up from the bottom black bar to pull up your apps, swipe from the left and right black bars to navigate your apps, swipe in from the top left corner to pull down the status bar and down from the top black bar for the app specific settings. There is a great, quick tutorial on this when you turn the device on. Once you used the PlayBook for a few minutes you’ll be trying to use swipes on every other tablet you hold.

The Keyboard:

Using the keyboard while riding the bus is easy as all of the keys are accessible easily while holding the device with two hands. Bring up (or close) the keyboard at anytime by swiping in from the bottom left corner. Tap and hold a key to bring up alternate characters. It is possible to type on the keyboard with all fingers while in landscape mode but I would only do it for short periods of time. Typing lengthy articles on any touch screen device is a pain. I’ve read that you are able to attach a Bluetooth keyboard to the device but haven’t been able to test that yet.

What BlackBerry Needs to Fix:
>Better light box support in the browser with the keyboard
>A complete set of Bluetooth drivers for common peripherals (stereo gateway)
>Music in the browser should play when the screen is off
>Allow apps to force orientation but don’t update the actual swipe orientation until the device is turned

Summary:
This is a very solid device and is my preference when compared to the iPad2 and Xoom. I would recommend trying out all tablets before you make a decision. To me, the iPod touch is the least intuitive device I own. To others, the iPod is very intuitive. There is no single device that meets everyone’s needs. Try them all and buy the one that suites you.

Enjoy!

Keyboard comparison:

My devices:

Problem:
The camera roll in my painting application worked with the virtual machine (0.9.4 SDK) but didn’t work on the actual device.

Solution:
I added acess_shared to my blackberry-tablet.xml file and the camera roll worked great. The device prompts on first run notifying the user of which permissions you requested, similar to how Android works.

BlackBerry has a list of actions documented here:
http://docs.blackberry.com/en/developers/deliverables/23959/Overview_1352483_11.jsp#Accessing_secure_APIs_1524628_11

Here is a photo of items added to my camera roll:

Stay tuned for a full video review of the PlayBook coming this week.

Blog post created on my PlayBook

Problem:
You want to test your signed application on the device before submitting it to the app world or setting up the debug certificate. The PlayBook browser doesn’t currently support the BAR extension (hopefully this will change).

Solution:
Use the blackberry-deploy command to send your signed BAR file directly to the device. Before doing this you’ll need to put your device in developer mode.

To put your PlayBook in developer mode go into the device settings (top right corner) and select Security. Click on the Development Mode button and select to enable it. Here’s the tricky part, to actually get this working I needed to reboot the device and go back into the settings and re-enable development mode. This might have just been a fluke but worth mentioning. After doing this the developer icon showed up on the home screen along with my device ip address (see image).

Connect the device up to your machine using the usb cable, open a command prompt in the SDK bin folder and run the following command:

>blackberry-deploy -installApp -device DEVICE_IP -password DEV_PASSWORD yourappname.bar

You will have to put the full path to your BAR if it’s not in the bin directory.

After running that command my signed application was on the device and ready to go.

Create your market ready AIR apps for iOS, Android and the BlackBerry PlayBook in a single click using the same code. This ANT task compiles, signs and pushes out to attached devices (iOS requires dragging into iTunes). All of the signed apps created with this ANT task can be published to the market.

Overview:
The AIR 2.6 SDK is great but doesn't have full Flash Builder support yet. This ANT task can be used in Flash Builder, Flash Develop, FDT or even the command line. Using Flash Develop, you can create apps for all devices without paying for expensive software!

Pre-requisites:
You will need to install Flash Builder Burrito, the BlackBerry PlayBook SDK, the AIR 2.6 SDK and acquire signing keys for all three devices. If using Flash Develop, you will need to follow some additional steps for ANT integration. You'll also want to download the base project from Google Code: http://code.google.com/p/air-mobile-tools/

Video Tutorial:

Wiki:
The wiki on Google code contains more information on getting started with this base project: http://code.google.com/p/air-mobile-tools/wiki/BaseMobileActionScriptProject

ANT Task:

Resources:
http://www.terrenceryan.com/blog/post.cfm/using-ant-to-package-the-same-air-app-to-multiple-devices
http://technophi.com/2011/03/08/using-ant-to-compile-a-flex-mobile-project-for-ios/
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/flex_ant_pt1.html
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/air/build/WSfffb011ac560372f-5d0f4f25128cc9cd0cb-7ffb.html