Adobe is starting up August with quite the Edge on its’ hands. It’s Adobe Edge and it’s available for a free download from Adobe Labs as they work on the product. Edge was first demoed at Adobe MAX last October and it has changed and evolved quite a bit. The app allows you to create HTML5 based animated content for your website and apps using a timeline that will be very familiar with After Effects aficionados. By importing SVG, PNG, JPEG and creating simple graphics and text using their user interface, you’ll be able to create timeline animations, fades, moves, scales and much more. A cool feature is you can create rounded rectangles and then change the roundness of each corner so the rectangle can look very organic.
Edge still has a long way to go incorporating audio, video, interactivity and a lot more. But at the very least, you can create HTML5 animations right now that will work on an iPad or similar device.
In addition, Adobe has created a companion site, The Expressive Web, to promote and inform about all the different HTML5 and CSS3 properties with examples and tutorials.
The download of Edge is free and you can obtain it from Adobe Labs right now.