Slider, a mobile version of Flex

Another interesting announcement was made yesterday at MAX 2009. Next to the fact that you can develop iPhone apps with Flash Pro CS5, it is not recommended to use the Flex framework for building these applications. The official statement says:

While it is possible to create iPhone content using the desktop Flex Framework, we do not recommend it. The Flex framework is currently optimized for execution in a desktop environment. The performance, UI, and interaction models have not been optimized for mobile devices.

Adobe is working on a mobile Flex Framework, which should be better suited for iPhone development.

The framework is called Slider and it sounds very interesting, because if you have the standard controls and theming at you disposal for building for example an iPhone app, it’s going to make your life a lot easier when building an app.

Some facts about Slider:

• Slider is a mobile-optimized version of the Flex framework that will make it easy for developers to build Flex applications that run across mobile devices.
• It is based on the Flex 4 codebase, so it’s not a step back.
• An early mobile branch of the Flex framework is expected to be available in 2010.
• The first version will be optimized to run on high-end smartphones, and will initially target standalone application environments such as Adobe AIR. Does this also mean the iPhone apps? Let’s hope so.
• You will be able to use Flash Builder to create Slider apps.
• The difference with Flash Lite is that Flash Lite is a smaller, lighter-weight runtime created to run on low-end phones, and Slider is a mobile version of the Flex framework designed for building applications.
• For a complete overview of the Slider framework check out this whitepaper.

Also check out this video about Flex for Mobile Devices by Ely Greenfield and Greg Burch:

Exciting times