Why AIR might, or might not, be the biggest thing to arrive on your desktop in years.
Adobe went one step further to merging the Web with your PC desktop today, with the launch of its AIR and Flex platform for Web apps.
In a nutshell, AIR apps are connected to the Web, but live on your desktop, bringing you constant updates on your eBay auction, or whether your Telstra stock is nosediving. There's also the Adobe Media Player built with AIR, for online and offline video playback, and AOL's Top 100 Videos client (see picture).
It all sounds impressive, but is this really anything we haven't seen before? From what we can glean from Adobe's product showcase, announcements and various projects appearing online, AIR has a few key advantages for Web users:
Mobile apps: One of the goals Adobe reps have referred to is to allow Web apps to run on several platforms. Apps are being demoed for Windows, Mac and Linux. But the potential killer is mobile phones. There's nothing concrete in the initial announcements from Adobe that we've seen, but we're waiting for details. Five years ago this might have been ambitious, but now…did someone say Android, or iPhone?
Instant updates: Nasdaq Market Replay is one of the first AIR apps on the block. In basic terms, it sits on your desktop, and lets you replay stock activity down to what happened at any given millisecond. Real time updates are nothing new; the magic is AIR's ability to handle mammoth amounts of data.
No fiddling with passwords and Web site logins: Ok, so you'll probably still need logins, but at least you won't be constantly opening browser tabs and loading html pages. AIR apps let you upload and monitor Web sites like Flickr and eBay without opening your browser.
Desktop Web apps are not new, but AIR supposedly does it in a way that's more sophisticated. Mind you, the cross-platform stuff is giving us De Ja Vu, and Microsoft's Silverlight project has us wondering whether we're heading towards yet another online battle between competing Web technologies.
Try out AIR:
eBay Desktop
Adobe Media Player