Adobe releases Flash Player 14 and AIR 14

Adobe has released a major update to its web media player and runtime platform with the release of Adobe Flash Player 14.0 and Adobe AIR 14.0.

The new releases deliver a number of new features and updates: a PPAPI Flash Player content debugger, support for Atom-based Android devices and -- of most interest to end users -- support for the AIR Gamepad API.

The PPAPI Flash Player content debugger gives Flash developers the opportunity to debug content using the PPAPI interface found on Chromium-based browsers. Once installed, developers are directed to chrome://plugins where they should see the debug version of Shockwave Flash should be available to enable.

Also added to version 14 of Flash and AIR are support for anisotropic filtering and a new Stage3D "standard" profile when creating Context3D.

Adobe AIR 14 gains support for Intel Atom-based mobile Android devices via the -arch ADT command line option. The new iOS packaging engine also gains numerous improvements and bug fixes.

Another new addition to version 14 of Adobe AIR is the new AIR Gamepad API, which allows developers to use Android mobiles as either a second screen or game controller for Flash-based games.

Users must simply ensure their Android device is on the same network as the parent computer and be running version 14 of AIR Runtime app on their mobile. At the current time, version 13 is still being touted in the Play Store.

The API provides support for gesture, touch and Accelerometer events, plus vibration and applying skins onto the AIR gamepad screen. To test the feature, once Adobe AIR 14.0 is installed on your Android device, browse to ModelViewer or Hungry Hero in the paired computer’s browser and follow the instructions.

The update is rounded off by a large number of bug fixes, including a range of Windows 8 and 8.1 fixes for Flash Player. Adobe AIR fixes cover both iOS, Android and Windows platforms.

Adobe Flash Player for Other Browsers 14.0 and Adobe AIR 14.0 are both available now as a freeware downloads for Windows and Mac. Also available is Adobe Flash Player for Internet Explorer 14.0 for PCs running Windows 7 or earlier (Windows 8 users are delivered updates through the OS).