The [Adobe] AIR up there
I was sitting in a meeting this week for a company that I’m advising and they were talking about Adobe AIR and the new integrated runtime environment opportunities that are now presented for their specific service/company. I felt about 10 minutes late to the party. AIR? What did that stand for? I knew of Adobe Apollo.
Yes, for those 10 minutes, I had no idea what they were discussing. A fish out of water. A string hanging off a guitar during a solo. Alright, you get the point. So, I started doing some research on this “AIR” and turns out that it IS Adobe Apollo, just another name for it.
AIR stands for Adobe Integrated Runtime. Per the official website:
Adobe® AIR™, formerly code-named Apollo, is a cross-operating system runtime that allows developers to use their existing web development skills to build and deploy rich Internet applications to the desktop.
Lots of possibilities for this platform. The number one possibility I’d like to see it enable/bring back? PointCast. If PointCast had launched utilizing the Adobe AIR platform, the technical hurdles that the developers faced in the 90s would have went away and PointCast may be the next new network. Who knows. I’d love to place a bet that a similar [PointCast] model will emerge soon utilizing this platform.
After going to Adobe’s website and reading about the platform, I downloaded my first app. I’ve been off Twitter for a few months now because the tweets got to be annoying and I disabled receiving messages to my mobile phone (I even removed the Twitter sidebar from my blog). I’ve had a few people ask me why I’m not Tweeting so I decided to give it another try… and using the AIR platform, I downloaded Tweetr.
Per Tweetr’s blurb on AIR’s showcase gallery:
Tweetr allows people using twitter.com to send and receive messages from their desktop in 140 characters or less. The client packs many pleasant surprises like automatic url shortening, 3D transitions, new version notifications and font size settings for complicated Asian languages. The latest version now allows the users to see user replies and direct messages. If you use twitter then Tweetr is one of the best desktop clients you can use for Mac and PC.
So I’m back in Twitter through Tweetr and will see how it all works out. I’ve already gotten some error codes in the App but all-in-all, works OK. If I’m still using it in 2 weeks, we know it has sticking power.
I’m truly interested in seeing the apps that come out which utilize AIR. The initial apps will be simple, but over time, they will become more rich and complex. And yes, I’m calling a PointCast type network to emerge in the next 3 years.