Adobe promises console quality games on iOS with new Air 3

This is what Adobe has to nail if they want to stay relevant, a successful cross-platform development system that can ignore the Flash Player plug-in if needed. If they can do it better then various start ups then they may yet survive in the long terms.

So Adobe creates a way for more developers to create IOS apps, and people complain about the speed. Valid complaint, so Adobe announces that the next version will be dramatically faster, and people complain about.. the existing version being slow. I respectfully submit that if you just are going to hate everything Flash, you may want to stop chiming in on specific issues like this.

Enabling more developers to create apps is a good thing. Will some bad developers make bad apps with this? Of course, just like bad developers make bad Objective C Apps. Simply working in a native environment does not help people make content beautiful, engaging, or fun to play.

If you really think that Flash cannot be used to create a great game, please take a look at http://www.zombietycoon.com/MolehillTechDemo.html, which is made for the next version of Flash. You'll need to install a beta Flash player, but this demo shows Flash done right.

"The more options developers have for making great apps on Apple's platform, the better for us users."

First off, my experience with applications developed with Air makes me pretty suspicious of the claim that it is an option for developing great apps. Seems like it is an option for developing lowest common denominator, write-once, run-nowhere-well applications. I worked at a place were we had to use an Air application. If Air hadn't been around, I wouldn't have had to use that inferior application, so even if great applications can be developed on Air, crap ones can too, and having crappy apps doesn't improve my life as a user.

Secondly, I'm doubt your claim that having more options (even if you can produce great apps with them) is better for users. That's one of those things that people say just because they sound good or conform to their preconceived biases. It's thrown out here at the end of the article as if it were true, but there isn't any evidence for it and plenty against it.

If more options were always better, then Apple would need to reconsider their product strategy, which is distinctly based around the notion that fewer options are better. Maybe more options dilutes the effort and expertise available on the platform, making for overall worse games. Maybe the paradox of choice causes some developers who could produce great app, to get stuck and never do anything. Maybe the presence of choice dilutes the quality of the training available to developers. Maybe the great apps developed with these options differ in their user interface is ways that leave users perpetually confused about how to perform basic actions. Maybe great applications can developed on Air but most are total dreck. The presence of so much dreck in the marketplace lowers consumer expectations making for lesser quality overall.

I'm glad lookitsron thinks this is a compelling argument that he loves. I'm dubious.

I love your point of view here, "the more options developers have for making great apps on Apple's platform, the better for us users."

if Machnarium is any indication then I am worried.

Somehow flash requires iPad2 in order to run a simple 2D game.