Wednesday concluded another great Adobe MAX event. It was a great chance to interact with the design & development communities, as well as check out Adobe’s latest and greatest. I’ll try to summarize as much of the content and announcements as possible here. First, let’s start with the keynotes:
MAX Day 1 Keynote
Day one focused on new creative tooling, including the Creative Cloud and Adobe Touch suite of applications. You can view the full day one keynote below:
MAX Day 2 Keynote
Day two focused on new HTML5 tooling and Flash Platform developments. You can view the full day two keynote here:
Now, on to the announcements:
Flash Payer 11 & AIR 3 are now available for download
These include support for Stage3d (hardware accelerated 2D/3D graphics), native 64 bit support, native JSON support, enhanced garbage collection, cubic bezier curve support, unlimited BitmapData, enhanced networking, enhanced text input, captive runtime support, and native extensions (AIR only). Go download the latest builds today and get the most out of your Flash Platform experience. You can find more details in Adobe Developer Connection stories: What’s New In Flash Player 11 and What’s new in Adobe AIR 3
Adobe unveils “Creative Cloud“
Creative Cloud is a new cloud-based service that allows you to seamlessly share content between creative suite applications, and includes software subscriptions. You can find details on Adobe TV, on the Creative Cloud home page, in the press release, or in the FAQ.
Adobe releases Touch Apps to redefine creative software
Adobe has introduced new tablet-based creative applications for both iOS and Android (some currently available with iOS coming soon, and others vice versa). You can learn more about the Adobe Touch Suite of applications in the video below:
Here’s a little bit about the Touch Suite applications (original source):
- Adobe Photoshop Touch allows users to transform images with core Photoshop features and create new images by combining photos, choosing elements to edit, and applying filters and other effects.
- Adobe Collage helps creatives capture and refine ideas and concepts by allowing them to combine inspirational images, drawings, text and Creative Suite files into modern, conceptual mood boards.
- Adobe Debut allows creative professionals to present designs to clients and stakeholders virtually anywhere, opening tablet-compatible versions of Creative Suite files for convenient and beautiful viewing on the tablet.
- Adobe Ideas is an easy-to-master, vector-based tool for drawing, using either a stylus or a finger.
- Adobe Kuler makes it easy to generate color themes that can inspire any design project.
- Adobe Proto enables the development of interactive wireframes and prototypes for websites and mobile apps on a tablet using gestures and a touch-based interface.
You can learn more about the Adobe Touch suite of applications at: http://tv.adobe.com/show/adobe-touch-apps
Adobe Announces Agreement to Acquire Nitobi, Creator of PhoneGap
Adobe has entered into an agreement to acquire Nitobi, the creator of the open source HTML-based cross-platform mobile development tool PhoneGap. You can read more about the Nitobi acquisition from the press release. Many have asked “is this the end of AIR for mobile”, and I cannot emphasize enough that this is a good thing. Having both PhoneGap and Flex/AIR for mobile provides you with even more value from Adobe’s product offerings. Fellow Adobe Evangelist Greg Wilson has a great analogy for the PhoneGap + Flex/AIR strategy:
If I worked for a company that sells tile flooring, it would be tough for me to convince someone that tile is the best choice for a particular room because they will expect me to say that tile is best for everything. Conversely, if I worked for a company that sells wood flooring, they expect me to say wood is best. However, if I work for a company that sells both types of flooring, I can have a real discussion about which is best on a room by room basis because I will have credibility in both types of flooring.
Adobe Acquires Web Typography Innovator Typekit
Adobe announced that it has acquired privately held Typekit Inc., a leader in the delivery of hosted, high-quality fonts for use on websites. Available as a subscription-based cloud service, You can read details around the Typekit acquisition from the press release.
Adobe Announces Digital Publishing Suite, Single Edition
Adobe’s Digital Publishing Suite now offers “Single Edition”, an addition to the DPS tooling that enables small business and single-publishers to create digital publications (brocheures, portfolios, reports, books, etc…) for tablet devices. You can read more about DPS Single Edition from the DPS blog, press release, or Adobe TV.
More…
You can read additional announcement details from the “Adobe Conversations” blog.