14 DAY TRIAL // An updated flavor of Adobe AIR is now available for download for the owners of Android-based devices, namely version 3.9.0.106.
The new application release brings along a series of appealing features to the mobile operating system, including multi-threading, a feature known as AIR Workers.
This is the first time when AIR Workers is released on a mobile operating system, allowing developers to execute code in the background, without interrupting the application’s main code.
According to Adobe, the feature will leave the app’s UI responsive, so that users enjoy an enhanced experience.
Additionally, the new version of Adobe AIR for Android brings support for background execution in Direct Rending Mode.
“This will allow your applications to perform tasks such as audio playback even when invisible to the user. Due to power and CPU considerations, we recommend reviewing our release notes for additional details and guidance,” Adobe explains in the software’s release notes.
This is the first time when Adobe AIR offers support for background execution when the render mode is set to direct.
Previously, Stage3D-based apps could not execute background tasks such as audio playback, location updates, network upload/download, and the like.
However, all these are possible on Android now, as the platform includes no restrictions when it comes to applications that can make OpenGLES or other tasks in the background.
“With this feature, we will now allow AIR mobile apps to execute in background when renderMode direct is set. […] No error will be thrown on Android, as Android native apps are allowed to make OpenGLES calls in the background,” Adobe continues.
“It's recommended to not make rendering calls while your app is executing in the background as its important to utilize the mobile resources judicially.”
The company also provides a list of Stage APIs that could throw the error 3768 – “The Stage3D API may not be used during background execution. The swf version should be 22 and above.”
In addition to these enhancements, Adobe AIR 3.9 for Android brings support for 144x144 image size icon.