Adrian Aioanei

Adobe AIR Revolution

Adobe AIR, currently in beta stage, is a new software from Adobe that lets developers using HTML, Ajax, Flash and Flex build and deploy rich internet application on their own desktop. Although AIR finalization is in progress, there are many applications out there built on top of it, showing all the cool capabilities of the software. I will list some of the ones available for the public.

1. Adobe Media Player

Adobe® Media Player lets you watch your favorite shows, anytime, anywhere—while enabling new ways for content businesses to create, deliver, and monetize high-quality content and advertising through a customizable cross-platform player that supports both downloaded and streamed media.

Adobe is driving a fusion of TV and the Internet with Adobe Media Player, Flash® Media Server, content protection technologies, broad and powerful ecosystems of partners providing key solutions from content creation to delivery and monetization.

Adobe Media Player gives the user complete control and flexibility to view what they want, when they want—online and offline.

Features:

• Catalog—Discover new shows and video podcasts to add to your Favorite Shows.
• My Favorites—Automatically download new episodes of your favorite shows and video podcasts.
• New Episodes—Quickly manage and play a list of new episodes from your favorite shows and video podcasts.
• Personal Videos—Gather and manage your personal collection of Flash videos.
• FLV on your Desktop—Stream, download, manage, and play rich media content. Double click on any FLV file to play it in Adobe Media Player.

You can view more details and download Adobe Media Player from Here.

2. Adobe Kuler


After the success of web-based version of Adobe Kuler, the AIR-based version is available within Adobe Labs.

kuler is the first web-hosted application from Adobe Labs designed both to stand alone and to complement Adobe® Creative Suite® software. Built using Adobe® Flash® and ActionScript 3.0, kuler is all about color: color for exploration, inspiration, experimentation and sharing.

kuler features include RSS feeds of the most popular, highest rated and newest color themes, an Apple Dashboard widget to subscribe to these feeds, UI enhancements requested by the kuler community, and new desktop patterns based on our highest rated themes.

kuler now provides a direct link to Adobe Creative Suite 3 family of software. A panel in Adobe Illustrator CS3, built entirely in Adobe Flash, provides direct access to the kuler online community from the desktop and from the desktop to the kuler online community.

More details and download Kuler Here.

3. eBay Desktop

The giant online shopping company eBay has released the equivalent desktop client, built with Adobe AIR. Right now they are in public beta, allowing registered clients (you will need a valid eBay account) to use the desktop application. The shopping experience is slightly increased by the presence of flash content with discrete animation. Despite of all the fun provided by running on desktop, I’m not sure all the guys out there will feel secure about this, although there is nothing really to be scared of.

You can keep an eye on the San Dima project Here.

There is also a bunch of other sample applications within Adobe Labs, great examples of what you can work out with Adobe AIR.

All these give a huge plus to AIR as version 1 has not been released yet but I’m positive AIR has been used in a couple of more cool applications already. If you know one, just name it and let’s take a look at it.