Research In Motion and Adobe Systems Alliance

Research In Motion (RIM) and Adobe® have expanded their collaboration and announce that creative professionals and application developers will be able to use the Adobe® Flash® Platform technology and Adobe Creative Suite® content development and authoring tools to easily create rich content and application experiences for BlackBerry® smartphones.

Background

• View the RIM press release
• Visit www.adobe.com/go/blackberry for additional information from Adobe

Videos

• Creating a BlackBerry Widget Using Adobe Dreamweaver – See a preview of how you’ll be able to create a BlackBerry Widget using Adobe Dreamweaver, the industry-leading web content authoring tool.
• Creating Graphics Optimized for BlackBerry in the Adobe Creative Suite – Watch this video to see a demo illustrating the creation of graphical assets optimized for BlackBerry smartphones using the Adobe Creative Suite.

FAQ

1. What are RIM and Adobe announcing at the 2009 BlackBerry Developer Conference?
   RIM and Adobe are announcing several exciting developments at the 2009 BlackBerry Developer Conference:
   • Adobe will be introducing new features in the next version of Adobe Creative Suite that will enable designers and developers to create BlackBerry smartphone optimized graphics quickly and efficiently
   • The industry-leading Adobe Dreamweaver will feature new enhancements to enable web designers to create BlackBerry smartphone websites and widgets
   • RIM and Adobe will be working together to improve the integration between Adobe Creative Suite and the BlackBerry® Java® Plug-in for Eclipse®, so the collaboration process between designers and developers, using their respective industry-standard tools, will be greatly improved
   • RIM and Adobe will be collaborating to enable other key components of the Flash Platform, including optimizing Adobe AIR® for BlackBerry smartphone use cases
2. What should I consider when it comes to creating graphics for a mobile environment?
   Designing graphics for mobile requires some careful design choices as the graphics need to fit within the resolution of a smartphone screen and be sized to fit within the available memory and network transfer capabilities of the device. At the same time, providing strong visual appeal is extremely important.
   
   Adobe and RIM are working together to ensure graphics used in BlackBerry smartphone applications and websites can be quickly optimized to strike a balance between visual appeal and mobile optimization.
3. How will I be able to use Dreamweaver for creating BlackBerry smartphone web content and widgets?
   Many web designers use the industry-leading Adobe Dreamweaver to design their web content. The alliance between Adobe and RIM means that soon you’ll be able to use Dreamweaver to efficiently create BlackBerry smartphones websites and widgets, using the same design workflow you use for the web.
   
   Using Dreamweaver to author for BlackBerry smartphones builds on RIM’s commitment to the web as a development platform for BlackBerry smartphones, as reinforced during the first BlackBerry developer conference. In August, the acquisition of Torch Mobile was announced. In October, the availability of BlackBerry Widgets was announced, as well as that the Flash Player will be coming to BlackBerry smartphones.
4. What are some of the challenges that designers and developers face when creating user interfaces for web content and applications?
   In many companies, the responsibility of designing a user interface is jointly shared by designers and software developers. In many cases, the initial concepts for the user interface are designed in a graphics tool such as industry standards like Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator.
   
   Once the concept has been approved, it’s often handed to a development group that recreates the designer’s vision in an integrated development environment (IDE) such as Eclipse®, using graphical elements of the designer’s concept.
   
   This process can challenging, due to the two parties working in different toolsets. Challenges can include:
   • The images in the concept may not be optimized for an intended mobile platform in terms of color depth, resolution, size and file format
   • It can be difficult to achieve the desired visual effect of a user interface element while optimizing it for mobile
   • Exchanging assets between the tools can be a complicated process
   • The developer may not be able to replicate a design layout done in a design tool as easily in a development environment
   • Images may need to be adjusted in resolution and aspect ratios in order to appear correctly on a range of device form factors
   
   Without the appropriate integration between designer and developer tools for creating user interfaces, the authoring process can be iterative, time-consuming and difficult.
5. How will RIM and Adobe address the challenges of designer and developer collaboration?
   RIM and Adobe are working together to improve the designer-developer workflows between Adobe Creative Suite and the BlackBerry Java Plug-in for Eclipse development environment, including:
   • Optimizing graphics for BlackBerry smartphones
   • Improving the sharing of graphics assets between Adobe design tools and the BlackBerry Java Plug-in for Eclipse
   • Streamlining the UI design process between the designer and developer
6. How do creative professionals benefit from this?
   Mobile application and content development will be faster and easier with integrated workflows between BlackBerry smartphones and Adobe tools. The collaboration will also reduce the re-creation of graphic assets and the iterations designers and developers have to go through to generate rich application user interfaces, animations, images and video content when supporting multiple platforms.
7. How do BlackBerry application developers benefit?
   BlackBerry application developers will benefit by having more time to spend on developing exciting BlackBerry smartphone application features due to saving time when it comes to creating UI and mobile web and application graphics.
8. How do BlackBerry users benefit?
   Building on the release of BlackBerry App World™ in April and exciting new development tools such as BlackBerry Widgets, the RIM and Adobe alliance will continue the momentum in enabling RIM’s broad BlackBerry developer community and Adobe’s creative community to create compelling and innovative applications. BlackBerry customers can use these applications to truly personalize their BlackBerry smartphone experience to meet their needs.
9. Which Adobe tools will RIM be integrating with?
   A number of Adobe tools will initially enable the creation of BlackBerry smartphone optimized content, including
   • Adobe Photoshop CS5
   • Adobe Illustrator CS5
   • Adobe Dreamweaver CS5
10. When is Adobe Creative Suite 5 coming out?
    Adobe Creative Suite 5 is coming out in 2010.
11. When will the Adobe Flash Player be available on BlackBerry smartphones?
    The timeline is currently being established and will be announced at a future date.
12. Which BlackBerry smartphones will support Flash Player 10.1?
    The roadmap is currently being defined and an announcement will be made at a future date.
13. How will the Flash Player be supported on the BlackBerry platform?
    The initial support for Adobe Flash Player 10.1 is expected to be tied to the BlackBerry® Browser, BlackBerry Widgets and the web rendering engine.
14. Where can I go to be notified?
    
    • To receive more information as it becomes available, visit the live developer blog
    • Learn more about Flash Platform technologies, including Flash Player and Adobe AIR
    • Learn more about Adobe Creative Suite