We’ve talked about Flex apps for Android, iOS and PlayBook for over a year… and you’re sick of hearing about it, right?  Well, now we’re going to shut up and let the actual shipping product do the talking.  Today, we released Flash Builder 4.5.1, the promised update to 4.5 that adds iOS and BlackBerry PlayBook to the recently released Android support.

The dialog to the right is now something you can see yourself minutes after downloading Flash Builder 4.5.1.

Are you skeptical?  Many developers are. But, over the past few weeks, we’ve been showing off apps built with 4.5.1 and watched developer after developer say “wow” when they see the performance of the resulting applications (see my previous blog post for more details on how developers responded and the questions they asked)

• To see how great the performance is, check out Christophe Coenraet’s Adobe TV video – Christophe demonstrates the same app running on an iPad, iPod touch and various Android devices.  The apps even show off video collaboration over 3G across devices across OS’s!
   
• I recently interviewed Shashwati Keith, one of the Flex SDK QE engineers about an app that she wrote called Muni Tracker that is already available in the Apple app store and Android Market (and soon the BlackBerry PlayBook app store!).  See the Adobe TV video.
   
• What about games?  Here’s an Adobe TV video where I demonstrate some games built by HD Interactive.  The games are Pyramix and Mr. Mixit, both of which are available for iOS and Android now (be sure to check out the reviews!).  Pyramix was even recently on the “New and Noteworthy” list of word games in the Apple app store (more details here)!  I recently interviewed the Sean Carey and Todd William of HD Interactive about how these apps were developed and how they addressed the challenges of building apps for multiple device types.  We also discuss the economics of being able to build apps for multiple OS’s, marketplaces, etc. See the video here.
   
• Serge Jespers recently did an Adobe TV video demonstrating how apps can be built for all three mobile OS’s using Flash Builder 4.5.1.
   
• Serge also did an Adobe TV video specific to building apps on iOS (certs, provisioning, etc.)

So yes, it’s real, it’s here, it’s available for download and many developers already have solid apps in the various app stores today.

If you’ve stumbled onto this article and are asking “What the heck is Flex?”, I suggest you start here.  To sum it up, it’s OO, event driven, component-based and something you will aclimate to quickly if you are familiar with Java and similar languages.  The IDE is eclipse-based so you already know how to use it.  You can even do on-device debugging and app deployment FROM Eclipse.

Source : gregsramblings