What Is Adobe AIR?

[UPDATE: This article was written in January 08. AIR is now live and out of beta. Air for Linux is currently in Alpha]

We’re only four weeks in to the new year and already it’s looking like Air will be the buzzword of the year. The Macbook Air may have stolen the limelight from Adobe’s new technology, Air, for a few weeks, but there’s no doubt that when Adobe Air is unleashed this spring, it’ll cause quite a stir in the web developer community.

What Exactly Is Adobe Air?

AIR stands for, the Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) and is one of the latest interesting development from Adobe.

AIR runs on Windows, OS X and is currently in Alpha for Linux. It installs the first time you download and run an AIR application, much in the same way that Flash is installed on a computer if the user visits a web site using Flash and they don’t already have it installed.

Air applications run on the desktop and are half way between web based applications (which run in a browser) and full blown desktop applications such as Word or Photoshop.

Developers can create AIR applications using the HTML, CSS, Javascript, Flash, Flex (A flash framework) and PDF knowledge they already have and AIR acts as a wrapper that allows them to run on the desktop and go beyond the limitations they would normally have if they were running in a web browser.

Is It A Web or a Desktop Application?

Neither, it’s a hybrid.

Where AIR applications differ from current web applications is that they do not run in the browser and therefore are able to use desktop features such as full drag and drop between applications, save files to the local hard drive or network and store data locally in a database.

When compared to traditional desktop applications, AIR applications are simple to deploy, easy and cost-effective to build, have better web integration and will run on all three of the major operating systems.

AIR finds the best of both worlds. It can interact with online resources if connected or use local storage (via SQLite) and synchronise data when next connected.

Why Does Adobe Air Matter?

The reason that AIR is significant is not so much for what can be created, but for how those applications are created and who can create them.

There’s not really that much new in Air from a technology perspective. Its strength is that web developers can use existing web technologies, (X)HTML, CSS, Javascript, Flash and PDF to create applications that run on the desktop. AIR can work in tandem with your existing web sites and web applications and can be built by web developers using the skills they already have. In the cases where AIR will be working in tandem with an existing web site you have much of the code that you need developed already.

AIR also matters because it gives companies that only have a web presence the ability to have a presence on the user desktop as well. AIR interrupts the process of opening a browser and searching for a service. Companies that provide successful AIR applications stand to benefit from higher customer retention.

Who Is Using Air?

At present AIR is still in Beta and has changed significantly each time between Beta releases. But already, some high profile companies such as eBay and PayPal are developing AIR applications and whole range of smaller companies are investing resources in AIR applications.

Tomorrow, I’ll look at a selection of applications that use AIR and illustrate the broad range of capabilities that this technology promises.