It’s taken me a few weeks to catch up after back to back conferences in Minnesota and LA, but this weekend I finally got around to jotting down my thoughts about Adobe MAX 2010. The yearly Max conference is always a highlight for me, and this year was no exception. Throughout the conference Adobe set a magnanimous tone regarding HTML5, positioning Flash/HTML as complimentary and not an either/or choice. It was great to see them paint the future of the web as a place where multiple methodologies can thrive with Adobe creating tools to support creatives regardless of technology. Here are some highlights from the conference.
My Panel
While I hate to list this as my first highlight, it was my reason for attending the conference. I spoke on a panel about Adobe’s InMarket program – a multi-store distribution platform for applications. InMarket allows you to push AIR applications to multiple stores from one easy to use interface. It was a great conversation between myself and other executives from Atari, Graphic.ly, Shufflr.fm and Thumbplay. Its great seeing Adobe take steps to fix a serious productivity problem for app developers regardless of platform.
Netaverages from Omniture
Adobe announced NetAverages from Omniture, an analytics tool that averages traffic across all the sites that Omniture tracks. It shows everything from browser usage, to screen size and mobile capabilities. You can set up alerts to be notified when browser usage hits a certain percentage, or mobile capabilities reach a threshold you set.
iPad Magazines
The Adobe Digital Publishing Suite is set of tools for creating digital versions of magazines. Using InDesign and HTML5 print and web designers can create digital magazines like WIRED, The New Yorker, iGizmo and Sabado Bicentenario on the iPad as well as other tablets coming to the market.
Check out the Digital Publishing prerelease program.
Connected TV
A huge priority at Max this year was Flash for televisions. Adobe announced AIR for TV, which allows content providers and app developers to create applications for connected televisions. Google TV, and the device’s Flash enabled browser were also showcased with companies building websites formatted specifically for televisions.
Check out HBO GO for a great connected TV experience.
Blackberry Playbook
In the day one keynote we were treated to the first glimpse of the Blackberry Playbook in action. It’s built on top of the QNX OS (which powers the connected car prototype Fanbase runs on) and includes AIR at a very low system level. In fact many of the native Playbook apps, including the photo viewer, were written in AIR.
Flash Next
While HTML5 was a huge focus of the conference, MAX was not without some impressive Flash announcements. Adobe showcased game controller support for Flash and the impressive 3D capabilities of an upcoming version of Flash Player codenamed “Molehill”. The player has the ability to playback full 3D games at 0% CPU usage with hundreds of times more polygons than the current Flash player. Also showcased were upcoming enhancements to StageVideo that allow for full framerate playback of composited video and 4k video playback within Flash.
Muse
The final product that I was demoed during my three day stay was an upcoming piece of software codenamed Muse. Muse is an AIR app which can most easily be described as Flash Catalyst for HTML5. It allows visual/graphic designers to build out websites with complex functionality without needing to write any code.
Conclusion
All in all I had an amazing time, caught up with friends in the industry and collected enough inspiration to carry me through the rest of the year. Looking forward to MAX 2011!
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Posted on: 11/16/2010
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