Adobe's Integrated Runtime - more than just hot air?
Last week, Adobe released version 1.0 of it's newest product: the Adobe Integrated Runtime, in short: AIR.
Ever since the release had been announced I've been wondering what AIR really held in store for us web developers. It was supposed to bring the web to the desktop - that I knew - but what exactly were the great advantages that made AIR as special and powerful as Adobe suggested? At last week's Adobe AIR Camp, in Zurich, I finally found some answers:
First of all, AIR presents itself as a framework rather than a completely new product as one might suggest. It comes with WebKit the Safari browser engine and is also capable of displaying Flash content which allows developers to apply common web development techniques such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript and ActionScript to deploy desktop applications.
So far so good, but what makes it differ from a common browser?
Of course, AIR is more than that: For example, while Flash applications had nothing but the rather unsatisfying possibility to use cookies or shared objects to store data on the client side, AIR offers APIs to access SQLite databases, manage all sorts of files and even write a limited amount of encrypted data to the disk. Combined with the ability to monitor the net connection status, one has a powerful tool at hand when it comes to managing and synchronizing online and offline data.
Together with a bunch of rather small but helpful features such as hidden and transparent windows, notifications and file drag and drop AIR offers a solid collection of desktop features. Sadly, when it comes to executing other applications - a feature we'd all hoped for - the developer is still forced to resort to expensive third party tools such as mdm ZINC. Of course, these restriction haven't been made causeless but were based on either security or crossplatform issues. Understandable, but, yet, a bummer.
This flaw left aside, there obviously is potential in AIR, although some good part of it needs to be dug up from under the surface by combining the various tools AIR offers. Which leaves us with the question: How deep is the community digging?
From what I saw, it seemed, Adobe has created most of the impressive AIR examples that currently circle the web such as an offline eBay client themselves to promote their new product.
The community, on the contrary, seems rather reluctant to come up with more than just a handful of innovative applications amongst repeating implementations of mp3 players, widgets or twitter clients.
And even the major part of the later applications does not seem 100% AIRified: Only few of the remarkable features implemented really take advantage of the tools exclusively provided by the AIR framework. The remaining majority of features could just as well be implemented in any (yet impressive) web application or even has to be categorized as simple (yet nice and fun) eye candy.
So, is the potential that lies within AIR and its predicted impact on the world of desktop applications simply overrated or is the community's imagination, yet, too caught up in the web ways of development to exploit AIR's potential to full extend?
Despite the mentioned shortcomings, I believe in the later. So, all you web developers out there, step up! Don't just leave AIR to rot as just another widget engine and start digging!
Ever since the release had been announced I've been wondering what AIR really held in store for us web developers. It was supposed to bring the web to the desktop - that I knew - but what exactly were the great advantages that made AIR as special and powerful as Adobe suggested? At last week's Adobe AIR Camp, in Zurich, I finally found some answers:
First of all, AIR presents itself as a framework rather than a completely new product as one might suggest. It comes with WebKit the Safari browser engine and is also capable of displaying Flash content which allows developers to apply common web development techniques such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript and ActionScript to deploy desktop applications.
So far so good, but what makes it differ from a common browser?
Of course, AIR is more than that: For example, while Flash applications had nothing but the rather unsatisfying possibility to use cookies or shared objects to store data on the client side, AIR offers APIs to access SQLite databases, manage all sorts of files and even write a limited amount of encrypted data to the disk. Combined with the ability to monitor the net connection status, one has a powerful tool at hand when it comes to managing and synchronizing online and offline data.
Together with a bunch of rather small but helpful features such as hidden and transparent windows, notifications and file drag and drop AIR offers a solid collection of desktop features. Sadly, when it comes to executing other applications - a feature we'd all hoped for - the developer is still forced to resort to expensive third party tools such as mdm ZINC. Of course, these restriction haven't been made causeless but were based on either security or crossplatform issues. Understandable, but, yet, a bummer.
This flaw left aside, there obviously is potential in AIR, although some good part of it needs to be dug up from under the surface by combining the various tools AIR offers. Which leaves us with the question: How deep is the community digging?
From what I saw, it seemed, Adobe has created most of the impressive AIR examples that currently circle the web such as an offline eBay client themselves to promote their new product.
The community, on the contrary, seems rather reluctant to come up with more than just a handful of innovative applications amongst repeating implementations of mp3 players, widgets or twitter clients.
And even the major part of the later applications does not seem 100% AIRified: Only few of the remarkable features implemented really take advantage of the tools exclusively provided by the AIR framework. The remaining majority of features could just as well be implemented in any (yet impressive) web application or even has to be categorized as simple (yet nice and fun) eye candy.
So, is the potential that lies within AIR and its predicted impact on the world of desktop applications simply overrated or is the community's imagination, yet, too caught up in the web ways of development to exploit AIR's potential to full extend?
Despite the mentioned shortcomings, I believe in the later. So, all you web developers out there, step up! Don't just leave AIR to rot as just another widget engine and start digging!