I asked Allen Seirafi from Adobe a couple of questions about Flex. Thought you would be interested, of course these are not official Adobe statements. Here is what he had to say:
- Is Flash Player 9 going to be included in Windows Vista?
We don’t know yet, since it is really MS call. The good news is whether they include or not, about 80% of PCs will have it by the end of the year regardless. We get about 10 mil downloads daily. Sites like myspace and google video all use Flash 9. therefore the adaptation is very high. Also Flex 2 has the auto detect and upgrade capability, therefore users can get the upgrade without getting redirected to Adobe’s site…
- Are there plans to include the main Flex framework classes in the flash player to reduce file size and redundancy?
That is a very good question, and I believe the answer is no. however, Adobe is working on a new technology called Apollo, which will give ability to have more of these libraries loaded, and a much much better performance. The Alpha or Beta should start becoming available during the beginning of next year. They really like to keep the player slim, therefore most likely not…
- Are there plans to improve the support of rotation of visual elements (buggy in some aspects)?
Yes, that should see some improvement in the next dot release, and a lot more by the next major release. Already there are some 3-D charts that people have built for rotation etc. that works pretty good… this area needs improvement and is one of the major ones they are looking at…
- Is the Flex framework staying free?
Yes. They are definitely doing that to increase adaptation. Therefore the sdk is definitely staying free. This model has not slowed down the sales and only increased it, so I very much doubt if they change…
- When will be the official release date of Flex 2.01?
This is not dated yet, so anything I say would be a pure guess, and my guess would be mid-year next year!
Great questions Thomas!
Best,
-Allen
