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My son, Arthur, and I each developed apps for PlayBook under a developer challenge that RIM issued last fall. Now that the SDK is up to speed and Flash Builder 5.5 is out, apps are being made fast and furious. I am working on a blog entry on my Adobe Blog about using Flash CS5.5 and Flash Builder 5.5 to build one app and deploy it painlessly to iPhone, iPad, PlayBook, and Android. I am amazed at how easy it is to get the project done now.

The title is the provocative: Adobe Flash: 20m phones flip Steve Jobs the bird and it refers to the meteoric rise of Android phones. 

I am most intrigued by the claim that Steve Jobs' personal vendetta against Flash is the best thing to happen to Flash since, well, Flash. Jobs' claims of instability and of the player not being ready for mobile spurred Adobe in to high gear, and Flash Player 10.1 and 10.2 are the result.

The article also mentions that although Flash Player is forbidden on iOS devices, Adobe's AIR is allowed after a brief period where it was walled out by the terms of the Developer Agreement.

Since AIR is running on a plethora of Android and other devices as well as iOS, it seems that AIR is a smart choice for companies wishing to develop cross-platform applications quickly and with a minimum of recoding.

Add to this Adobe's next releases Flash Catalyst and Flash Builder (in public beta at Adobe Labs), which cater to multi-screen development, and you've got a complete app development environment for just about all screens. 

My son Arthur, who blogs about technology and creates YouTube training videos, took the challenge seriously. He dug into the public betas of Flash Builder and Flash Catalyst, got the PlayBook SKD, and went to town.

He developed in Flash Builder, which has several advantages to using the native language. Adobe includes many output paths from Flash Builder, including AIR Desktop, AIR for Android and (with the PlayBook SDK) PlayBook. It is also possible to package for iPhone, but it's a command line task as of yet. I do expect to see Flash Professional-like packaging in Flash Builder before too long, though. Having one development environment makes app creation, testing and deployment so much faster.

Along the way, he encountered one major hurdle in the development process: there's no device on which to test the app! While RIM offers a VMWare simulator, it lacks some key features like multi-touch screen interactions, accelerometer behaviors, geolocation, and more. While these features are accessible in apps, they are hard to simulate on a laptop.

Regardless, he got an app working and submitted to the store. The app is a browser for our CommuniPix service. He plans to expand it to be a more functional interface to the service, including camera access, in-ap ordering, and more. I look forward to seeing what he cooks up after he gets his hands on a device. Now, to get busy on my app...

The PlayBook has several things that set it apart from the others, however. The most obvious is its BlackBerry heritage, a feature that makes it immediately appealing to enterprise customers. The PlayBook is much more than a tablet that has a BlackBerry logo on it, however.

Technically, it's a screamer with a 1 GHz dual core processor and 1GB of RAM. Its 1024 x 600 touchscreen responds to at least 4 simultaneous touches, and perhaps more. In addition, its BlackBerry Tablet OS supports both Adobe Flash and Adobe AIR Mobile in addition to Java and other technologies.

I am interested in developing applications using AIR for Mobile, since I've had some experience with AIR for desktop and TV. Fortunately for me, RIM has made it easy to get connected to their developer tools.

In addition, they have a webinar series that puts developers in touch with smart folks who want to help expand the PlayBook developer network.

As an enticement to get people to write and publish PlayBook apps, RIM is offering free PlayBooks to developers who get an app into their AppWorld.

This is great for RIM and for developers, since it gives them the tools they need to build apps for the PlayBook. Also, since it will run AIR apps, I can write an AIR Mobile app that will play on PlayBook as well as Android devices and televisions. I believe that PlayBook and AIR Mobile will be a golden opportunity for developers of entertainment and enterprise apps alike.

It has evolved into a larger suite of services integrated closely not only with Acrobat 9 and the upcoming Acrobat X, but also with Creative Suite 5 and its CS Review service. It is a useful cloud offering in its own right, whether or not you use it with Acrobat or Creative Suite. Going beyond its document collaboration roots, it also includes the ability to become a Learning Management System repository when used with Captivate 5. I wrote a some blog entries a few months back about using Acrobat.com as a repository for eLearning with Captivate 5. And, for the basic service, it's free!

This morning, Adobe rolled out SendNow and CreatePDF, two new services that extend the value of Acrobat.com.

SendNow allows you to send files to other people via email. It is similar to services like YouSendIt, but this based on the existing Acrobat.com infrastructure and has the backing of Adobe Systems' extensive cloud. 

You might wonder how it's different from the existing Share function of Acrobat.com. Share is about collaboration, and when you Share a file, it ends up in the other person's Acrobat.com files when they log into Acrobat.com. It's pretty neat when you're working with several people on the same project and you want everyone to have a copy of the document.

In the case of SendNow, it delivers an email with a tracked link to the file. When the user clicks the link, they are taken to a web page where they download the file. No login, no fuss, no muss. The file remains available for seven days then disappears. You can send up to 100MB at a time, and each file can be downloaded up to 100 times. If you need larger files or longer duration, you can subscribe to the SendNow service and receive more disk space as well as other benefits.

CreatePDF is a service that allows you to upload files and convert them to PDF. It also includes a desktop printer that will print to the service, and a capability to combine two or more PDFs into one PDF. The basic service will allow you to convert 5 files to PDF and print 5 files to PDF. To use the combination feature, you need a paid subscription.

The new services are available separately from Acrobat.com. It is unclear whether a subscription to Acrobat.com includes SendNow and CreatePDF, since the page hasn't been updated yet. However, since an Acrobat.com subscription has always included unlimited PDF conversions, I would imagine that the $15 per month for the Plus version of Acrobat.com would at least include CreatePDF, but I'll update this when I learn more about it.

Acrobat users are wondering about why they would need this service. Well, imagine that you're working on a shared computer that DOESN'T have Acrobat installed. Or, you're working in a library or other public terminal and there's no PDF maker. This offers you the ability to create a PDF from your native Office documents as well as the complete suite of file formats that Acrobat supports. Also, for many companies, the cost of Acrobat isn't palatable just for creating and combining PDFs, but a monthly subscription service is just the trick to increase productivity. And, of course, you get all of the other benefits of Acrobat.com to boot.

I am excited to see Acrobat.com grow. I believe that the cloud is a good move for Adobe, and while many users are just getting introduced to Acrobat.com, those of us who are old hats are liking the new features and services. I can't wait to see what's next.

Let me talk about different aspects of the conference, so that you can get a feel for how great this was. From the hospitality side, there were helpful guides everywhere you went. People with signs and clipboards and smiles, so that you could easily find your way to the proper place for the next great thing. I had many conversations with these docents over the week, and they were as pleasant at 7:00 am as they were at 10:00 pm. Yes, it's LA and everyone's in show biz, but great job with the staffing.

We were well fed, and not with piles of junk food and beef jerky like I've seen at previous MAX conferences. Fruit, beverages, and sweets in moderation for snacks, pizza and beer when appropriate, and great party food for the mixers. The Grab and Go breakfast of coffee and donuts was the only thing I found lacking, and opted for Starbuck's breakfast. No strikes against MAX, though, since I wasn't expecting breakfast anyway.

As for venue, the LA Convention Center is a huge facility with a tremendous number of classrooms, meeting rooms and exhibit spaces. Every room had ample seating, clear views of the presenters, and good audio support. I had the privilege of working with Patti Sokol as a TA for some of her classes, and the classes went very smoothly with help from the event technical staff.

As an Adobe Community Professional, I was treated like a king. We had access to the front of the general sessions, so I got to sit in the third row and be close enough to the speakers to hear them without amplification. 

Now. About the content of the show...

Wow.

Just that.

Wow.

The general sessions revealed technology for mobile, video and web that will keep Adobe ahead of the pack for years to come, despite the buzz over HTML5 and CSS3. When the dust settles, businesses will continue to require proven, protected delivery methods that can help them make money, not just stream videos for free. We saw content displayed on tablets from Apple, RIM, Samsung, and others. In fact, it was almost like a pharmaceutical convention with all the tablets!Kevin Lynch, with the help of Martha Stewart (whom I met and with whom I had a very nice conversation in the lobby of the JW Marriott after the general session) demonstrated new publishing technologies for those tablets as well. Seeing the InDesign logo on stage during the General Session was a big boost for my confidence in Adobe's plans for traditional design and print.

Of course, the fact that they gave everyone a Droid 2 and a Logitech Google TV unit helped to keep enthusiasm levels high.

You can review many of the sessions athttp://tv.adobe.com/channel/max/max-2010/ Adobe TV's MAX 2010 Channel. You can learn more than you'll ever want to know about the Flash platform, Flash Builder, Flash Catalyst, and Flash on mobile and television. You'll also learn about what's coming in the next year or two, and get a sense of what Adobe's partners like RIM, Google, Motorola, and others are doing with these technologies to raise their devices to a whole new level of astonishing.

I went to many sessions and labs over the week, and was most impressed by two distinctly different technologies: AIR for TV and a preview of a possible new web design tool.

I was fortunate enough to get into one of the Make Your First AIR for TV application sessions, and spent an hour creating a quick Flash movie, exporting to AIR, and getting it to play on a Television set top box. We got to keep the developer set top box as an incentive to go and create some apps, so I just may have to do that. I also went to a Samsung talk about the future of AIR on their televisions and Blu-Ray players. I firmly believe that having Flash and AIR on these set top boxes and Blu-Ray devices will make Televisions the next iPhones when it comes to apps. Adobe also unveiled its InMarket service, which helps developers get their apps into a broad array of app stores. I plan to take advantage of this myself, and while I don't expect to get rich with a TV app, it might just pay the cable bill.

I saw a preview of a new web design tool for graphic designers. I am not sure how much I can say about it, so I won't say much. I will say that it is definitely a game changer for helping traditional designers transition to designing for the Web. I overheard more than one "oh... my... God!" and "Can I have this NOW??" and "Where has this been all my life?" comments during the session. Keep your eyes open for something wonderful from Adobe for Designers.

After the show, I felt more than inspired to be in this business. I felt uplifted and reinvigorated. The bickering over Flash and HTML5 has been draining all around. To see how exciting technology can be and how wonderful the results of innovation can be when great tools are put to work by smart people makes the trip to LA and MAX 2010 the best conference I have ever attended. Period.

I went online to find what went wrong, and began with the tractor part number, and was able to drill down into the engine and and select the proper parts. Calling the toll free number, I was offered many apologies, but they were only going to allow me to return one of the push rods, despite their being in their original packaging. I argued that they had been purchased based on their manual, and eventually, I got the entire purchase refunded and ordered the new part.

But here's the wasteful part.

I asked how to return the push rods to Sears so that they could be sold to someone who needs them. The person on the phone told me that it was "not cost effective" to actually accept the parts back into their inventory, and to "throw them in the trash."

I was shocked by Sears' attitude. I understand that the return postage probably costs more than the value of the parts, but it's the principle of the thing! We used to have a parts depot here in Portland, so we could compare parts before purchasing to ensure we had the right parts in hand. Now, if the parts don't fit, throw them away.

Shame on you, Sears. I'll think twice before purchasing a Sears branded piece of yard equipment again.

MAX came to Adobe by way of Macromedia. It had been a developer's playground where Flash, Flex and ColdFusion developers got together, sat in dark rooms, and coded their hearts out for a few days. Also, there were awards, seminars, hands-on labs, and a constant supply of snacks.

After Adobe and Macromedia merged, it wasn't clear to us who were coming at it from the Adobe side whether it made any sense. I had the good fortune to attend a few years ago when Adobe Creative Suite 3 was new, and presented a day long deep dive session on the then state-of-the-art design suite. We designers and printers felt very much on the margins of things during that week, although as a guy who enjoys a few lines of code from time to time, I attended several of the "Make your first..." {insert your favorite technology acronym} "Application!" sessions. Wow, what an eye opener.

For those of us stuck in color booths on press checks, entrenched in marketing speak, or worrying about dotgain and ink dry times, MAX represents a whole new world of exciting possibilities. 

This year, the conference is in Los Angeles, and while I am indeed working the show again, there will be ample time to sit in on those "make your first..." hands-on sessions and see what I can do. Since my first MAX, though, I have become a pretty decent PHP and MySQL guy with a solid understanding of CSS. I have also gotten very, very excited about Flash Catalyst and Flex, as well as the HTML5 features in Illustrator and Dreamweaver. I continue to be amazed at what can be done with InDesign, which looks more and more like the Swiss Knife of all media document production as it evolves.

What's exciting about this MAX is that as a designer/printer, I'll not be an outsider. There are many programs designed just for us, and that have been selected to expose us to other revenue streams for our companies as well as ways to branch out of our narrow design cubicles. New features in Design Premium aside, the real ticket to success lies in the Master Collection and the additional video, web and mobile content you can create with it.

I hope that more traditional designers realize this and don't think that MAX is just for code geeks anymore. Come to the conference and you'll be glad you did!

I agree with Le Hegaret and with Krill. Issues like Digital Rights Management and consistent appearance across browsers will provide developers and brand owners enough incentive to stick with technologies they know and understand when it comes to actually making money with their web sites. While Apple Computer believes that HTML5 is now, it is clear that HTML5 is yet to come.

Interestingly, in recent months, Adobe has made changes on its own web site to reduce the amount of Flash that is used to display content on its prominent customer-facing pages on its site. You won't notice these changes if you have Flash installed, of course, but instead of seeing those "missing plug-in" messages on your iPad, you'll get a non-Flash version of these pages. While less interesting and not interactive, these pages provide the customer with a more positive experience at adobe.com.

I have written before about HTML5 not being ready for Prime Time. I am glad that I am not alone in thinking that while it's nice to experiment with the chemistry set, it's best to get the descriptions of what's in the bottles first before mixing.