I went to a promotional tour for Adobe AIR today. The logistics of the event were a disaster: held on the roof of a bar on one of the hottest days of the year, in a room far too small for the number of attendees (crammed in like sweaty pickled herrings), with a weak projector giving an invisible presentation. Why they encouraged people to bring their laptops to an event like that I have no idea... Anyhow, I can forgive a disastrous event, but in this case even the most lavish event wouldn't have turned my head.
AIR promises to finally deliver on the elusive goal of "write once, run everywhere." The approach is to use the ubiquity of the Flash plugin to turn the browser inside out and run the WebKit engine everywhere, so web developers can just target one browser engine. The engine will be able to access OS-specific APIs as well, which makes it not the same everywhere, but never mind that. It also includes SQLite for a local store (just like Google Gears). It is the converse of Google Web Toolkit which abstracts the differences, but runs everywhere; it is similar to Silverlight but with the advantages of hordes of existing Adobe fans.
It is telling that in this effort, like with Flash, their Linux support is an afterthought (just as is "accessibility"). This explains their target market. Modern, freely available web tools allow for effective cross-browser development already, and weaving together a site with Flash and dynamic HTML works for most. But just as a caged animal returns to the cage after being freed, the Adobe faithful will gladly accept their shackles again and pay for access to AIR that others breathe for free.
2 comments:
Yeah. I can't imagine a worse day to hold an event like that out doors (I think it was one of the hottest days ever in Vancouver).
Anyways, I am sorry you did not have a good experience.
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But just as a caged animal returns to the cage after being freed, the Adobe faithful will gladly accept their shackles again and pay for access to AIR that others breathe for free.
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You may have missed this at the event, but the AIR Runtime is free (as in beer), as is the SDK. It doesn't cost anything to build or deploy AIR applications (you can use virtually any tool that you already use to develop HTML content).
If you have any additional questions, feel free to ping me.
mike chambers
mesh@adobe.com
Yes, the runtime is free as in beer, but it is not free as in speech. This is an important distinction, because the tap can be turned off at any time – preferably after an audience has become addicted. You raise a good point that I'm saying developers will have to pay: no, they don't pay with cash, not now: that will come later. Unless I missed news about Adobe becoming a nonprofit?
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