Adobe's air/Flash for developing Android apps?

Question

I recently found out that adobe's flash can also be used to develop android application, so I wanted to ask if there are any significant downsides or limitations to it, comparing with java? Such as am I able to access all the phone features, like GPS location, camera, etc. , when developing in Flash?

Thanks!

Answer 1

According to this post on Adobe web site:

• Camera and microphone
• Accelerometer
• GPS
• StageWebView
• Multitouch and gestures
• Screen orientation / full-screen
• Phone/SMS/e-mail/browser/Android Market integration
• Session cache support restore app state
• Hardware buttons
• Local databases SQLite
• Android permissions for Internet, SD card, GPS, camera, and so on

Are available to Air.

Considering performance, although I never have access to any benchmark results, I would bet (OK, I am a gambler here) it is a little bit slower (comparing per operation) with Adobe Air vs Java, although both of them are running on top of VMs.

Major Downsides on Air:

1. Client required to install Adobe Air platform on their Machine
2. (more importantly) your application would hardly looks like other application on Android... since you don't have access to native Android's UI widgets