Using AS3 to develop for the iPhone

[Afro-Ninja]

Check it

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flash cs5/appsfor_iphone/

and

http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/2009/10 /05/building-applications-for-the-iphone -with-flash/

[Montycarlo]

Naaaaiiice.

[Torrunt]

I think I should consider trying to move over to AS3 now...

[4urentertainment]

And they all kept saying Flash CS5 had nothing new...

But dang, flash developers can now port their games to the iPhone easily... This is amazing!

[GustTheASGuy]

The more cynical and political views are interesting.
http://whydoeseverythingsuck.com/2009/10 /adobe-announces-flash-can-build-iphone.
html

Also, haXe can run on iPhone.

[Jimp]

Very exciting, although apparently it doesnt support animation...

[Kirk-Cocaine]

Awesome stuff, hopefully this will lead to a boom of NG related apps.

[Xeptic]

I haven't read into it very mucho, but I suppose it doesn't support the accelerometer and multi-touch does it?

[Torrunt]

At 10/6/09 07:05 AM, Xeptic wrote: I haven't read into it very mucho, but I suppose it doesn't support the accelerometer and multi-touch does it?

Yes, it does.

[Kevin]

Dammit, now I'm going to have to switch to AS3.

I might as well switch right now.

I hereby renounce my AS2 faith.

[hdxmike]

At 10/6/09 10:15 AM, Kevin wrote: Dammit, now I'm going to have to switch to AS3.

I might as well switch right now.

I hereby renounce my AS2 faith.

Were here for ya man ,you can cry.

[MrRandomist]

I have now found my reason to transfer to AS3
thank you Adobe <3

goes and buys as3 book from ebay

[Afro-Ninja]

At 10/6/09 05:48 AM, GustTheASGuy wrote: The more cynical and political views are interesting.
http://whydoeseverythingsuck.com/2009/10 /adobe-announces-flash-can-build-iphone.
html

Also, haXe can run on iPhone.

app 'performance' might be an issue, but I really don't see how battery life will be. From what I've read the end product will be a native application on the iphone, not something that has to run on top of a virtual machine. I'm sure there will be issues in the beginning but I can only hope adobe will do their best to smooth them out.

[GustTheASGuy]

At 10/6/09 01:59 PM, Afro-Ninja wrote: app 'performance' might be an issue, but I really don't see how battery life will be.

They're directly related. The more inefficient a computation is, the more energy it requires. It's not just about time.

From what I've read the end product will be a native application on the iphone, not something that has to run on top of a virtual machine. I'm sure there will be issues in the beginning but I can only hope adobe will do their best to smooth them out.

Yes, it's compiled through LLVM. By stealing code from an existing dynamic language implementation and closing it, I'm sure.
I too am sure there will be issues.

[nick9001]

i know 2 people with afros- one of which who is a ninja but neither of their afros are as cool as yours!

[citricsquid]

I posted this in the reg lounge you big thief I expect royalties.

[Afro-Ninja]

At 10/6/09 02:08 PM, GustTheASGuy wrote:

At 10/6/09 01:59 PM, Afro-Ninja wrote: app 'performance' might be an issue, but I really don't see how battery life will be.

They're directly related. The more inefficient a computation is, the more energy it requires. It's not just about time.

I guess I'm just not familiar enough with how this stuff works at a lower level. I mean ok, let's take one of the simplest computations- adding one to a variable. I haven't used objective-C but I can only imagine it works identical in both languages.

var++;

what happens when I write that in my app built with AS3? Surely adobe isn't actually translating all of our code to objective c upon compilation, are they? And if not, why must the AS3 version of this statement be slower?

I'm guessing such an example is moot, and that an actual complex piece of code is required to completely understand...

[Thematrix27]

I'll be happy when they figure out how to make flash player compatible for Ipod touches. Although this sounds cool, they need to complete the basics before they move on to this.

[Afro-Ninja]

At 10/6/09 05:34 PM, Thematrix27 wrote: I'll be happy when they figure out how to make flash player compatible for Ipod touches. Although this sounds cool, they need to complete the basics before they move on to this.

well, they're two very different things. I'm happier with this because app development is something I've been interested in, and this offers a way to deliver straight to the app store via the flash platform. Users that I know are much more interested in browsing the app store than looking for flash content online with their mobile device

from what I've heard they already have the flash player built to work on iphone/ipod touch, but apple is being bitchy as usual. don't take my word on that.

[Glaiel-Gamer]

At 10/6/09 04:11 PM, Afro-Ninja wrote:

At 10/6/09 02:08 PM, GustTheASGuy wrote:

At 10/6/09 01:59 PM, Afro-Ninja wrote: app 'performance' might be an issue, but I really don't see how battery life will be.

They're directly related. The more inefficient a computation is, the more energy it requires. It's not just about time.

I guess I'm just not familiar enough with how this stuff works at a lower level. I mean ok, let's take one of the simplest computations- adding one to a variable. I haven't used objective-C but I can only imagine it works identical in both languages.

var++;

what happens when I write that in my app built with AS3? Surely adobe isn't actually translating all of our code to objective c upon compilation, are they? And if not, why must the AS3 version of this statement be slower?

I'm guessing such an example is moot, and that an actual complex piece of code is required to completely understand...

var++ is compiled to

mov eax, var
inc eax
mov var, eax

or something similar for assembly language.

flash bytecode it's compiled to (i think)

inc var

MOST LIKELY what flash is doing is translating the bytecode from flash into assembly language (i.e. skipping obj-c or c++ in the process)

any speed issues so far are most likely a result of the rendering engine port, not the AS translation.

I've not had much time to play with it though, but mike has, and I'm not sure how much I can legally say about it

[Glaiel-Gamer]

my bad, my guesswork assembly is for ++var, var++ has more code since it's post increment and needs a copy in there.

Everyone should learn how assembly and flash bytecode work even though you may never use them

[El-Presidente]

I would go and learn Objective - C / how to use XCode just before this came out. Fuck me! Well, I haven't really read any comments / the articles, but I'm assuming someone's going to or has said something about performance issues. I can only hope!

[TheSwindler]

That is awesome. I am definitely switching to AS3 and CS5 when I'm done with my current AS2 projects.

[Murudai]

The already saturated iPhone market is about to be ultra-flooded by the hordes of Flash developers who can now just port all their games over. No more requirement to have a Mac, no more requirement to learn Objective-C. The floodgates are open.

Since most of you are amateur developers, that's great! Port easily over to a new platform, make a bit more cash, have a larger audience.

But since I'm a professional developer, it means trying to make a profit on a game is next to impossible with the crazy over-saturated market. I was just getting ready to develop some iPhone games, but this news means I won't bother. Making just a little game and turning a profit with it will be impossible, which means the only way to make some money is to make a big, stand out game. And that puts development costs well into 'uncomfortable'.

So I'm forgetting iPhone and going back to XBLA. I'd rather compete with Castle Crashers than try and stand out amongst a million little Flash games.

[El-Presidente]

Murudai, while it sounds a little cocky, self-interested argument, that was kind of my point, too! It's a pain in the ass now, but it says released end of 2009, so I'm just hoping to finish something really quickly if I get time and put it in before the gates open.

[Glaiel-Gamer]

At 10/6/09 11:14 PM, Murudai wrote: The already saturated iPhone market is about to be ultra-flooded by the hordes of Flash developers who can now just port all their games over. No more requirement to have a Mac, no more requirement to learn Objective-C. The floodgates are open.

there is a requirement to pay $100/yr for the iphone dev license/access to app store, which should weed out 90% of the crap that could go up there but still leave that very very large chunk of 10% left

[Afro-Ninja]

At 10/6/09 11:14 PM, Murudai wrote: Since most of you are amateur developers, that's great! Port easily over to a new platform, make a bit more cash, have a larger audience.

amateur developers = amateur games. it would stand to reason that a small game produced in a quality fashion will still stand above the masses of mediocre games.

[Murudai]

At 10/7/09 12:04 AM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote: there is a requirement to pay $100/yr for the iphone dev license/access to app store, which should weed out 90% of the crap that could go up there but still leave that very very large chunk of 10% left

At 10/7/09 02:03 AM, Afro-Ninja wrote: amateur developers = amateur games. it would stand to reason that a small game produced in a quality fashion will still stand above the masses of mediocre games.

Both very true comments, but this is a whole new league we're entering here. There's a version of Sims 3 on iPhone, and a version of Spore too. The latest Need for Speed is on there too. There are no big name titles like this in Flash, but there are a LOT of big name titles on iPhone. Heck, Resident Evil 4 is coming out soon for it. The list keeps going.

When the hordes of Flash games enter in, people will just ignore all these crappy games and go back to these triple A titles. Your awesome Flash game will just be dismissed along with the rest of the entire group as users pick up the games they know and trust.

Best chance you have is if you are already established in Flash, if you have a nice big fan base and you release a really awesome iPhone game, then your fans will go out and word of mouth will hopefully spread it out a bit.

But if you're hoping on releasing an awesome game right into the iPhone marketplace and doing well, then you may as well just buy a lottery ticket instead. You'd have just as good odds. And making iPhone accessible to Flash is just going to make those odds even worse.

I should put a disclaimer on here saying that this is just my thoughts derived from my experience and many months of researching the iPhone market. Could turn out completely differently to what I'm saying here, in which case I'll eat my hat.

[Glaiel-Gamer]

the iphone market is already like that

[GustTheASGuy]

At 10/6/09 04:11 PM, Afro-Ninja wrote: I guess I'm just not familiar enough with how this stuff works at a lower level.

No, it's really that simple. You've heard that AS is 'slower' than C++. That means it more processor operations to compute the same things. This both makes it slower time-wise, and uses more energy of the computer. For a portable device, 'lagging' means not only realtime slowdown, but that the processor is draining the battery at its max rate.

what happens when I write that in my app built with AS3? Surely adobe isn't actually translating all of our code to objective c upon compilation, are they? And if not, why must the AS3 version of this statement be slower?

Not ObjC, it's LLVM. It's a kind of bytecode.

AS3 is slower because its semantics have fluff. The variable can be null, it can be a member, it can be a dynamic field. All those things have to be handled, the runtime spends operations checking this every time you increment a value, and then more operations if it is one of the cases.