Download Adobe AIR 3 Beta 2 and the New Adobe AIR 3 SDK Beta 2

Along with the second beta for Flash Player 11, Adobe also released the new AIR 3 Beta 2, containing the fixes in Flash Player along with several updates of its own.

A much bigger announcement for AIR developers though is that the AIR 3 SDK has also been released in beta form, enabling them to start coding with the new AIR 3 APIs and capabilities for the first time.

"AIR 3 delivers innovation for rich engaging applications with unparalleled performance improvements that deliver advanced graphics rendering, high-definition video, and consistent reach across operating systems and devices," the AIR 3 Beta 2 Adobe Labs page reads.

AIR 3 includes support for Flash Player 11 and the technologies it introduces. The most interesting is Stage 3D, a low-level 3D graphics API which should come especially handy for developers wanting to create cross-platform games with rich graphics.

These games should be able to run on Windows, Mac OS X and on mobile devices that support AIR 3, though some adjustments for each platform are probably inevitable.

Linux is no longer supported officially by Adobe, as of AIR 3, but there may be an open source project which may support new features in the AIR platform in the future.

Updates specific to AIR 3 include support for hardware accelerated video on mobile devices, via the Stage Video API. The feature had only been available in Flash for mobile and AIR for TV.

Another new feature in AIR 3 comes in very handy if users don't have the AIR runtime installed, developers can package the runtime along with their apps and have them both deployed at the same time.

"This beta release includes the AIR 3 SDK to enable mobile and desktop application development and provides access to the AIR 3 runtime for Windows and Mac only," Adobe also said.

There was no AIR 3 SDK available when the first AIR 3 Beta became available, making the release suitable only for checking for compatibility issues with existing apps, built for AIR 2. With the SDK now available, developers can get to work updating their apps to the new platform version.

Adobe AIR 3 Beta 2 for Windows is available for download here.
Adobe AIR 3 Beta 2 for Mac OS X is available for download here.

Adobe AIR 3 SDK Beta 2 for Windows is available for download here.