We all know about Adobe returning to work on porting an app written in CS5 thus using ActionScript.  But its not out yet.  And may not be out for a bit as I comment on my post on Adobe getting back to work.  However, if you just cannot wait, there is another option. Corona!

The tool is from a company called Ansca and it lets you build apps for iOS and Android.  Sounds like something Adobe would have done??  Your right because the company is full of Ex-Adobe people who where working on the flash lite and port to mobile program, so they may know a thing or two about what they are doing.  I have tried this myself and its pretty good.  However, its not in ActionScript, the platform is Lua.  I do not have much experience with Lua, but its pretty close to JavaScript / ActionScript so I was not as lost as I was when starting with CoCo.  So why Lua, I asked Walter Luh, the Co-founder/CTO, Ansca Mobile.

We chose Lua because no other scripting language on the planet offers the combination of speed, portability, and compactness.  Lua is the most portable VM on the planet.  Lua has a proven track record in building world class apps and games from World of Warcraft and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom on the desktop to Tap Tap Revenge and Angry Birds on the iPhone.  Lua is also remarkably fast and is often the benchmark by which other scripting languages compare themselves.

Personally, I think its because his last name sounds like Lua… But he denies it. 🙂

The applications you can write are pretty sweet with a full blown physics game engine underneath.  Check out some of the videos at the end of this post.  So the big new is that Corona is out of Beta and ready to roll!  Here is the press release..

Ansca Mobile launches Corona SDK and Game Edition toolkits for cross-platform mobile app development

Palo Alto, CA | September 16, 2010 | Ansca Mobile today launched the upgraded Corona SDK and Corona Game Edition toolkits for mobile app and game development.

Corona SDK (software development kit) adds cross-platform capabilities to the previously iPhone-only Corona toolkit.  Developers now can use Corona to build apps for iOS and Android devices from the same set of code, saving considerable time on recoding for different mobile platforms.  On top of that, Corona SDK automatically scales graphics for each separate platform, saving users the time and effort of manually rescaling their assets between devices.

Corona Game Edition includes the same cross-platform capabilities as Corona SDK with expanded features for building more demanding mobile games.  Game Edition touts OpenFeint integration for easily adding social networking capabilities to games, sprite sheets for advanced texture handling, and a full-fledged physics engine.  Last month, OpenFeint even featured Doodle Dash! – an iPhone game made with a beta version of Game Edition – as their Free Game of the Day, helping it net over 160,000 downloads and a spot on the App Store’s Top 25 list of most downloaded apps.

Corona SDK is available now for $249/year, and Corona Game Edition is available for an introductory price of $349/year. Both SDK’s can be downloaded directly from Ansca Mobile, and include all new feature rollouts for the full year’s subscription.