Randy Troppmann

Adobe loves choice. They believe you should be able to develop once and deploy across multiple screens. Or devices. RunningMap Trackometer is a real example of this happening. To the right is a swf that is a proof of concept for an app that is being developed to run on Android-powered devices using Adobe’s AIR for Android runtime. To make the point clear, this swf was compiled from the same source (minus some device specific calls) that is used to compile the app that runs on Android mobile phones.

I have developed apps for the iPhone – one of them award nominated. RunningMap Trackometer for the iPhone was accepted for sale October 2009. I think it is a great platform to develop for and has tons of potential. But, learning Objective-c and Cocoa was and is tough for me. It’s pretty foreign and it still sometimes takes a long time to solve simple things. I have no doubt that will get easier over time and I love to learn new things. Once you get into it Objective-c has an oop-elegance about it. The real barrier in my mind to creating apps for the iPhone is the torturous process you need to go through to test, provision and submit your app so that you have maximized your chances at Apple blessing it and allowing it to be sold on the App Store. Anyone who has been there knows what I am talking about so I will stop there.

Trackometer for Android is not so much a port of the iPhone app as it is a port of the RunningMap.com application itself, with far fewer features. I’ve been developing for the Flash platform for 10 years and, unlike when I program in Objective-c, problems are solved very quickly. The workflow is like butter. And this is full blown Flash. While developing using the AIR for Android SDK, I did not need to change my well-honed workflow in any way, shape or form. RobotLegs is there. GTween is there. Flash Builder goodness. The API is only limited by the new paradigm; MOUSE_OVER, for example, is not possible with a touch interface. In fact there are a host of new APIs. Geolocation for example. And Trackometer uses that. Try to take your laptop for a run and see how fun that is.

So far I am amazed by how well AIR for Android performs on my Motorola Droid.

Getting the app on your phone is SO MUCH EASIER than with iPhone apps. No provisioning etc. Android phones could install Trackometer directly from this blog post if I placed the package here. But I can’t be cause a) Trackometer is not finished and b) the AIR for Android runtime is not released yet. I’m not sure when but I hope to know soon. I can’t wait.