14 DAY TRIAL // The guys over the Droid-life blog just got their hands on an Adobe Air for Android build. According to the aforementioned blog, this version is in a very early stage of development, so it might be buggy for some devices. Adobe AIR is a key component of the Adobe Flash Platform, which provides a consistent and flexible application development environment to deliver standalone applications outside the browser across devices and platforms.
Adobe AIR will let developers publish ActionScript 3 projects to run as native applications (.apk) for the Android OS. These AIR applications can be delivered to Android devices through Android application stores such as the Android Market.
Developers can write new code or reuse existing web content to build AIR applications for the Android OS, even if the specific application was written for iPhone. Because the source code and assets are reusable across the Flash Platform runtimes, Adobe AIR and Flash Player, it also gives developers a way to more easily target other mobile and desktop environments.
For those looking to make a buck, all applications can be monetized. First, ads can be placed in applications, which is possible thanks to the Adobe and mobile ad network Greystripe partnership, which enables ad placement in applications built with AIR. Second, when AIR support for Android ships in the second half of 2010 developers can monetize their app by selling it on Android Market.
While the Adobe AIR SDK and Adobe AIR runtime are scheduled to support Android by the second half of 2010, integrated tools support will be announced at a later date.
The pre-release of the AIR SDK supporting Android seems to only be compatible with Android 2.1 (Eclair) and 2.2 (FroYo). Even though it is expected that most Android devices supporting FroYo and Eclair to work, the only tested and certified devices are Google Nexus One and Motorola Droid. However, the final version of the SDK and the AIR runtime will ONLY support FroYo.