It has taken a while but it looks like mobile workers are finally going to see the light of day on Android and iOS. They were announced as part of the Adobe AIR 3.9 beta, which is now available for download. In fact, here are the features that you can try out right now:

  • Mobile Workers for Android
  • Mobile Support for Background Execution
  • iOS7 Support
  • Mac OS 10.9 Support
  • Android XXHDPI Icon Support
  • ActionScript Compiler 2.0 Integration

You’ll notice that mobile workers are only available in Android at the moment but a later download of 2.9 will also provide iOS support. Being able to run code in the background without interrupting your application’s main code is a huge feature.

Another interesting feature is that any apps built using Direct Render Mode will now support code execution even when the app is in the background. For example, you could write an app that continues to perform audio playback even after the user has exited the app and left it running in the background.

With the release of iOS7 imminent it’s good to see that AIR 3.9 will provide support for it. Oh and support for high resolution Android app icons is a welcome feature.

So yeah, pop along to Adobe Labs and give AIR 3.9 a spin.