14 DAY TRIAL // Adobe has announced the availability of the first release candidate of the upcoming Adobe AIR 3 runtime and the release candidate for the AIR 3 Software Development Kit.
AIR 3 brings a number of new technologies and features and developers can get started updating their applications for the new platform version or expanding the capabilities of their apps.
The latest AIR 3 is based on Flash 11, which has also reached release candidate status. Along with the enhancements and new technologies in Flash 11, AIR 3 also comes with some new features of its own.
Unsurprisingly, perhaps, many of the new features focus on mobile platforms, where Adobe is trying to make some inroads.
"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," Adobe boasts.
"AIR 3 is packed with features that will benefit all developers but has a special focus for those interested in developing console quality games, delivering high quality video, or scalable enterprise applications," it explained.
The desktop and TV version of Adobe AIR gains support for the Stage 3D API, a low level, hardware accelerated API for powerful graphics.
It's not available on mobile devices yet, but developers interested in mobile platforms get access to the older hardware accelerated Stage Video API which should make it much easier to integrate video features into AIR apps.
Another new feature in AIR 3, for desktop and Android since it's already been available for iOS devices, is the possibility of bundling the app with the runtime, so users don't have to install the two separately.
AIR 3 also enables developers to leverage native APIs and code inside AIR apps, written with ActionScript, to make it easier to take advantage of any capability the platform the app will run on, offers.
Adobe AIR for Windows is available for download here. Adobe AIR for Mac OS X is available for download here.
Adobe AIR SDK for Windows is available for download here.