Flex mobile supports native mobile features?

Question

Does flex mobile supports In-App purchases, push notification etc that can run on all supported mobile platforms (iOS, Android, Blackberry playbook).

Thanks

Answer 1

A note on Apple push notifications to clear up an apparent misconception from www.Flextras.com: Apple does not allow apps to bypass APNS and implement their own push notification service. Please see point 5.1 below.

From https://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/guidelines.html#push-notifications:

5. Push notifications
5.1 Apps that provide Push Notifications without using the Apple Push
    Notification (APN) API will be rejected
5.2 Apps that use the APN service without obtaining a Push Application ID from
    Apple will be rejected
5.3 Apps that send Push Notifications without first obtaining user consent will
    be rejected
5.4 Apps that send sensitive personal or confidential information using Push
    Notifications will be rejected
5.5 Apps that use Push Notifications to send unsolicited messages, or for the
    purpose of  phishing or spamming will be rejected
5.6 Apps cannot use Push Notifications to send advertising, promotions, or direct
    marketing of any kind
5.7 Apps cannot charge users for use of Push Notifications
5.8 Apps that excessively use the network capacity or bandwidth of the APN
    service or unduly burden a device with Push Notifications will be rejected
5.9 Apps that transmit viruses, files, computer code, or programs that may harm
    or disrupt the normal operation of the APN service will be rejected

I am currently using this open source iOS ANE to implement in-app purchases in Flex:

http://code.google.com/p/in-app-purchase-air-ios/wiki/APIDescription

There is a push notification ANE (both Android and iOS) as well that I'm currently investigating, although it may not support remote notifications:

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/air/native-extensions-for-air/extensions/notification.html

This iOS-only ANE for push notifications is open source:

http://flashsimulations.com/2011/12/16/apple-push-notification-service-native-extension-for-adobe-air/

Answer 2

Does flex mobile supports In-App purchases,

Not integrated with the native store "procedures". I hear you can "build your own" using PayPal w/o much trouble; but It is not something I've personally investigated.

push notification

Yeah, it should. As long you're connecting to a server that supports push notifications. BlazeDS and GraniteDS use long polling to accomplish this. WebORB and LiveCycle use RTMP.

It's hard to quantify what "etc" may mean.

Answer 3

Currently "all" native mobile features are "supported" via AIR native extensions.

You can read about AIR native extensions here

It is quite a new feature, but the point is, you can create bridge between native code SDK and your AIR application. It means, your application will be able to make calls to native SDK, and also receive events from native SDK.

Basically, if you want to present native feature in your Flex/AIR application, you create native code to achieve what you want (does require only little coding in most cases), bridge it with ActionScript interface, and package it as .ane (air native extension). This extension behaves like actionscript library you can then reuse for all your Flex projects if interested.

Link mentioned above also presents some examples - native notification is amongst them...

Since its fairly new feature, there are only few examples presented, but its not hard to code your own native extension for native feature you want - i did it myself and it worked... (here is simple native extension tutorial)

So the result is - you can present any native feature in your Flex app, as long as you have native extension for it...