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Using FlashBuilder 4.6 or 4.7, I generate an IPA file from Flex Mobile Project.

My Problem is that generation of IOS package takes from 15 to 30 minutes to generate 20 Mo package, while it takes 1 minute max for AIR and Android packages.

I know that IOS package is different as LLVM is used to generate that IPA and embed AIR methods used by package, but is there any way to improve this speed ?

I tried increasing Eclipse memory but it doesn't help. Analyzing further the tool I noticed it is mono threaded.

I have tried with AIR 3.1, AIR 3.3 and AIR 3.4 and generation times are still the same.

Except for this, note that I am very happy with Flex Mobile as I currently have an application developed in Flex which works on Windows, Mac OSX, Android Tablets and IPad.

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    I have a feeling that iOS compiler is a byte-code-to-byte-code translation, where Android might just simply embed a VM along with SWF. This may have to do with the fact that Apple does not allow embedded VM. – Tianzhen Lin Oct 30 '12 at 22:15
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    I don't know if using the latest AIR SDK helps (such as 3.4 or 3.5 beta), but I realize that even the simplest compilation with just an empty Sprite class would take 3 minutes on my Core i7 with CPU fully packed. I am sure Adobe is looking into improving all these, as their teams are working on Falcon compiler, perhaps there aren't enough resources from the company to fight all fronts, as long as there are enough people use Flash/Flex, we could see good things coming. – Tianzhen Lin Oct 30 '12 at 22:19
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    I've never come across any way to really speed it up. If you are doing rapid testing, you could do on-device debug mode, though. The fast build (which runs exceptionally slow on the device) is generally ~30 seconds and the standard build is 3-5 minutes which is much, much better for testing purposes – Josh Oct 30 '12 at 22:47
  • I'm not sure why; but my one mobile app compiles unbelievable quick by comparison. It was under five minutes to create an iOS release build. – JeffryHouser Oct 31 '12 at 00:00
  • Each iteration seems faster - AIR 3.5 package time is improved for my projects. – Jason Sturges Nov 06 '12 at 21:18

3 Answers3

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Currently, there is no way to speed it up. If you are simply debugging, you should use the fast build setting as was mentioned in the comments. I also like to bypass iTunes by using the newer AIR versions to install/uninstall the app on the device using adt -installApp -platform ios

Colin
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There is a good answer in another SO post about what is actually happening when you build for IOS and why it takes so long compared to android. https://stackoverflow.com/a/6906392/731880

Community
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vjuliano
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I've noticed 2 things, how it's possible to speed up:

  1. Turn off hyperthreading, sometimes it helps to save 3%-5% of time.

  2. OverClock CPU. It helps significantly! I have 2600K, I've increased clock speed from 3.4 Ghz to 4.8 Ghz and speed up increase is somewhere 30%-40%.

And one more thing, turn off all possible background processes which might take CPU time.

Stanislav Zayarsky
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