Install Flash or AIR on INTEL Android (Android-x86)?

Question

I'm porting a Flash 8 application to Android, and don't have an Android device.

I've got the emulator installed, but find it deathly slow.

I've also got Android 2.2 installed in VirtualBox using

http://www.android-x86.org/

and it works great. 10x better than the emulator for speed.

My problem: I haven't been able to figure out how to get Flash or Air installed in Android-x86 (an Intel version of Android). This may be because all the Flash apk's I've found are ARM based. Does anyone know if there are any Flash apk's for Intel based Android? Or libflashplayer.so built for an intel based Android anywhere?

Any ideas? Thanks!

Edit: Major Suggestion

Instead of using Android x86, consider using the Haxm acceleration from Intel to speed up your ARM emulation by about 10x. I've been doing this for other projects, and it's been faster than using a device

http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/speeding-up-the-android-emulator-on-intel-architecture

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Major Note: I had an employee from Adobe respond that it's not officially supported yet (Apr 2011).

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/838875?tstart=0

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Note: It does appear that an intel based libflashplayer.so must exist somewhere, as the Logitech Revue, which runs the GoogleTV version of Android on an Intel processor, is out:

http://androidspin.com/2010/10/25/logitech-revue-strips-down-showing-its-1-2ghz-processor/

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Note: I've tried to install the Market (so I could install Flash via the market) using various suggestions on the web, with no real success. It installs, but fails whenever I try and load it with

The application Market (com.android.vending) has stopped unexpectedly. Please try again.

I've Cleared the Cache and Data for the Market app, with no success.

I've also tried installing various Flash APK files I found on the web by loading them through the browser, with no success either. This does work for other APK's, but not the Flash ones, and I think it's because the APK's I've found are all ARM based, not Intel based.

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Note: I've also tried installing any APK's using adb connect IP-OF-VM, then doing installs, but no luck there either.

Thanks!

Smaltite

Answer 1

Flash Player installation

I've tested it on Genymotion Android 5.0 emulator in Firefox browser
Author tested it on some Asus x86 devices in Next Browser and stock browser

Source (russian): http://4pda.ru/forum/index.php?showtopic=604485&st=0#entry34325102

Flash Player version is: 11.1.115.81

Prerequisites:
- root rights

Steps:
1) uninstall Flash Player if it's already installed
2) download archive from source (russian forum with registration) or from mirrors
3) copy flashplayer.apk from archive to /system/app
4) change permissions of flashplayer.apk "rw- r-- r--" (you may use Root Explorer app)
5) in /system/lib create new directory "plugins" and set it's permissions as "rwx r-x r-x"
6) in /system/lib/plugins create new directory "com.adobe.flashplayer" and set it's permissions as "rwx r-x r-x"
7) copy libflashplayer.so from the archive to system/lib/plugins/com.adobe.flashplayer and set it's permissions as "rwx r-x r-x"
8) reboot device
9) launch Flash Player, if page with settings loaded -> enjoy

Bubalo

Cool! Thanks for the info.... I haven't tried this myself, but it sounds legit to me! I just downloaded the above FlashPlayer.rar from one of the mirrors, and put it here: dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/274922/flash_x86/flashplayer.rar – Smaltite

Answer 2

There is no guarantee that this is possible. Adobe supports Flash/Air on a specific set of devices only. http://www.adobe.com/flashplatform/certified_devices/

I don't mean to be discouraging, but here is my experience: back in the day (i.e. Nov 2010) Adobe made available a public beta of "Flash Pro Extension for Air" (this has since been removed from the Adobe site; see http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashpro_extensionforair/). That release contained two Air runtimes: one for physical devices and one for the emulator. I remember that the emulator runtime would only work in avd's running Android 2.2 (neither 2.1 nor 2.3 worked). What I'm trying to say is that this stuff is finicky. I wish you luck, but do not think you will get it to work. In particular, Flash may well check for an ARM v7 processor, which the Android-x86 environment does not have. http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/systemreqs/#mobile

Here's a little more info; the android-x86 forums are probably a better place to look for help on this than SO: http://groups.google.com/group/android-x86/browse_thread/thread/a5bba0d781773928/7abafab2f9cca714?lnk=gst&q=flash#7abafab2f9cca714

Edit: I like your thinking in re Logitech Revue, but I suspect the Google TV folks just cobbled together a stripped-down flv streamer, not a full, swf-capable flash player.

Edit: Any chance you could work with Wallaby?
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/wallaby/

Edit: Maybe try asking Veronique Brossier? (author of "Developing Android Apps w/Adobe Air") email address at top right of this page: http://www.flashgoddess.com/html/spotVBrossier.html

Edit: Two other factoids for your edification...
Last week Adobe announced CS5.5, with previously beta Android support now officially rolled in. Obviously, this does nothing solve your problem, but should give you some idea of Adobe's strategy (HTML5, multiplatform...).
I very much like the suggestion that you buy a device--no one develops for Android for long without one. The "problem" here is that Virgin Mobile's deal is by far the best, but with one big catch: the LG Optimus V does not support Flash/Air. The fact that non-Flash-capable phones are still being sold like hotcakes was one of the factors that made me drop Flash for my current projects. That was painful, but sometimes life is tough. :-)

Catboat

thanks! i understand that, but expect that it probably does work ;-) – Smaltite

thanks again for your continued edits on this answer. I've changed the question a bit to be more focused on the good points you've brought up! – Smaltite

Note: The course i'm converting is in Flash 8, which doesn't appear to be supported by Wallaby. I'm in the process of porting it to AS3, and it may be worth considering then. – Smaltite

Note that you'll need to bring your contents to AS3 regardless - AIR for Android doesn't support AS2! – Amalgam

FYI, The Veronique Brossier suggestion is a good one, but I haven't been able to find a way to contact her.... – Smaltite

@Amalgam - Thanks for the note! I could leave my course in Flash 8 if I wanted, I'd just couldn't deliver it using Air - In that case I'd build my APK using PhoneGap, and do Flash plugin detection in javascript, redirecting to the market to install Flash if the user was on an actual device and didn't have Flash installed. But since I'm porting it to AS3, I'll probably package it as an AIR app. Great point! – Smaltite

i was able to contact Veronique and she didn't know if it was possible or not, but directed me to the adobe mobile device forums to post my question there, which i've done (forums.adobe.com/thread/838875?tstart=0)... thanks for the suggestion Veronique! – Smaltite

I got an answer from the Adobe forums, and they said that it wasn't supported (forums.adobe.com/thread/838875?tstart=0) – Smaltite

Thanks for awarding me the bounty. I'm sorry that the news wasn't better, but sometimes a definitive "no" is better than an eternal quest without closure. If it weren't for Albert Einstein, I might still be trying to pedal my bicycle faster than the speed of light. :-) A year from now, the world will be a very different place: Android on Intel will be common, Flash will compile to HTML5, and even mobile Firefox will HTML5 compliant (predicteth moi). Best of luck with life on the bleeding edge. :-) – Catboat

Answer 3

Adobe Air supports Android intel x86

http://blogs.adobe.com/flashplayer/2014/04/adobe-air-now-supports-x86-android.html

Rearm

Answer 4

Assuming this is for a commercial training course, I'd recommend just buying a device - the cost will probably be offset significantly by (your hourly rate x hours you save).

Additionally, any tricks you use to create a non-standard environment mean you're not testing in a standard environment, which is less than ideal.

That said, there are official Linux libflashplayer.so binaries out there, so they may well run inside Android-x86 (as the normal Android environment is a custom JVM on top of Linux), although interfacing this with Android could be tricky - you'd need X11 (see X11 comes to Android for how you might do this)

If you are interested in contacting Veronique Brossier, there's someone of that name listed on LinkedIn, as a Senior Flash Developer - that might be a contact channel to use.

Hope this helps,

Phil Lello

Scrub

i agree that (hourly rate x hours I save) would work for me... and, it definitely costs me more to look for an x86 virtualization solution, but I like to think that it would be great for people other than myself as well ;-) very good point! – Smaltite

Answer 5

Responses to this question led me to ask this same question at the Adobe Mobile Device forums, and an Adobe employee said that it wasn't supported (April 2011):

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/838875?tstart=0

Smaltite

Answer 6

I know I'm a little late but this will help you solve your market FC

press Alt-F1 and type 'start faketsd' sans quotation marks.

Press alt-f7 to return to the Android desktop.

Kiruna

Answer 7

There are fully licensed versions of Android for x86 devices like the ASUS FHD 10. You should be able to package the app with Air for Android and have it work on Android-x86. In the case of my Intel based tablet, performance appears to be lacking as of Air version 3.9 but this could change in the future.

Note: The latest Flash APKs released by Adobe don't support x86 and the Flash for mobile devision is no longer active.

Demonology