AIR and performance questions

Question

Hey,
I'm new to AIR mobile development although i have around a decades experience with Flash, but with AIR for mobile i'm a bit lost. So i was hoping someone can answer these questions for me...
1. Is there currently no way to use a phones vibration with AIR? I remember seeing people asking this on these forums last year, and it still looks as if this extremely simple thing cannot be done? And if it cant, are there plans to have it in AIR 2.7?
2. When i select GPU acceleration, does it cache all bitmaps automatically? Or do i still have to manually select "Cache as Bitmap" for everything i want cached? (i'm using Flash Pro CS5.5). Because it seems to have no effect on frame rates whatever i do here as long as GPU render mode is selected.
3. Would i get better performance using vectors or bitmaps for graphics?
4. Whats the texture size limit for Android and iOS before it can no longer be cached?
5. Does it matter performance wise if JPG's and PNG's are used for graphics instead of bitmaps? (when i've not selected Cache as Bitmap).
6. Whats the differences between a AIR for Android and AIR for iOS? I've noticed that for Android it supports use of the camera, for iOS it dont. Is there anything else?
7. How can i embed a HD video in an AIR for Android app? i've seen this thread: http://forums.adobe.com/thread/849395?tstart=0
but it's for AIR on iOS, i wouldn't think it's any different for Android, but i'm getting a blank screen when i use the code from that thread (and i'm testing on a Android phone too, not in Flash > Test Movie).
Or if anyone has ANY tips for performance at all then i'd love to hear them

Answer 1

Hello,
I think that Colin may have answered a lot of your questions but here it is:
1. There is currently no way to make the phone vibrate for within AIR. You can read this post on how to create an Android/AIR hybrid application which gives you extension access to some native functionality. Warning: it is somewhat advanced and not supported by Adobe
http://www.jamesward.com/2011/05/11/extending-air-for-android/?replytocom=163323
You can expect to have this functionality in AIR at some point in the future, perhaps not in 2.7
2. in AIR for Android, there is no need to set GPU if you are only using bitmaps. Cache As Bitmap is only needed for vector art.
3. Bitmaps would be better but performance is not the only consideration. Remember that memory is limited so bitmaps can use it all so vectors may be a good option if you have a lot of art. A great advantage of using AIR is that you have the option between the two. My recommendation would be that if your art is going to be animated, create it as bitmap or use cacheAsBitmap if it only moves on x and y axis and use CacheAsBitmapMatrix if it transforms in other way (rotation, size).
4. The limit on Android was 1,024×1,024 last time I checked.
5. JPGs are smaller in size but PNGs look better. A side note, because the PPI is so high on devices, everything looks great so you can get away with lesser quality assets. Test all options.
6. The differences between the two platforms are minimal. Camera first but also Android lets you access the media library (where all the images taken by the device are stored) where iOS do not. In general Android is more open.
7. Video is a very large topic. If you embed the video, you will have a black screen until it is fully loaded. I should say that I did a project with a 1 GB movie and it loaded right away. I have not used the StageWebView to display the movie. Keep in mind that the way the video is endoced matters a great deal (use baseline profile).
Here is some sample code:
import flash.net.NetConnection;
import flash.net.NetStream;
import flash.media.Video;
import flash.events.NetStatusEvent;
var connection:NetConnection;
var video:Video;
video = new Video();
video.width = 480;
video.height = 320;
connection = new NetConnection();
connection.addEventListener(NetStatusEvent.NET_STATUS, netConnectionEvent);
connection.connect(null);
function netConnectionEvent(event:NetStatusEvent):void {
event.target.removeEventListener(NetStatusEvent.NET_STATUS,
netConnectionEvent);
if (event.info.code == "NetConnection.Connect.Success") {
var stream:NetStream = new NetStream(connection);
stream.addEventListener(NetStatusEvent.NET_STATUS, netStreamEvent);
var client:Object = new Object();
client.onMetaData = onMetaData;
stream.client = client;
// attach the stream to the video to display
video.attachNetStream(stream);
stream.play("someVideo.flv");
addChild(video);
function onMetaData(info:Object):void {}
I would recommend looking at my book. I cover a lot of these topics in detail (and went through the same hurdles as you):
http://oreilly.com/catalog/0636920013884
(you can get it on Amazon too).