Adobe Air surpasses 100 Million installations | Hacker News Reader

Adobe Air surpasses 100 Million installations

techcrunch.com

14 pointsThomPete22 comments

I still hate Air. Here's why:

Of all the companies, do we really want Adobe to be the gate keeper of yet another format? Isn't PDF and Flash enough?

Air encourages bad User Interfaces. One UI across multiple platforms leads to horrible, non-standard interfaces on all platforms.

Yet another format? They are just churning out yet another app on the same flash format, that's been installed on almost over 98% of desktops all over the world! So what's wrong? And if you have used some specific apps like eBay Desktop on Air, it rocks, esp if you are a power eBay user. Air is a good thing, I just hope that they learn from their PDF/Acrobat mistakes and do not let Air/Flash go down that path!

erm, Air apps require Adobe Air -- not Adobe Flash.

erm, Air apps are basically flash apps with a slightly more powerful api and framework to run them offline.

Yea, I think Air definitely brings a value addition on an already existing web platform. To use the APIs, and create an app that can work with your site in an online/offline mode, and still present a compelling interface, there isn't a whole lot of choice I see...

It's not a web app it's a desktop app.

You are creating a pseudo problem. You mother wouldn't even know it was an air app most probably.

I don't know what makes you think that those two paradigmes shouldn't merge. Nothing at all dictates that that shouldn't happen.

Firefox is at 800 million, but I'd say at least 40 of those were me!

I've never really used any app that runs on Air. What are the killer apps for this platform? There must be something big if they've got 100 million installations.

pclark, well you will have a hard time finding a framework that is more fitted for online/offline services, that actually allows you to create a proper UX and design experience and that is so easy to get going with. No other crossbrowser frameworks work as well as this IMHO

for a bloody good reason -- it shouldn't be done.

The solution? Web Apps + Google Gears. Then it'll run on any OS, even iPhones -- and can be offline. You have the added ability of creating a "nice" UI that users will expect - if my mother was to open an Adobe Air, she'd be confused as hell. Its neither a web app, nor a native app.

Don't make web apps look like desktop apps

Always make desktop apps look like their native OS. If you can't do this, just make a freaking web app.

I'm going to have to disagree, an AIR application is no less a native application than a java program. There is no need for a network connection for it to run.

So what's the point of AIR? Why do we need it.

For many different reasons a few of them being, that it's easy and yet powerful and let you create powerful professional apps with any degree of usability and UX you require.

It allows for you to blur the line between of and online in a much more smooth way.

and we've seen what adobe things "smooth" is from when Fireworks/Photoshop "smoothens" text.

Not at all.

don't know what they did to you but apparently you seem pissed at them for some reason. It's just software mate.

You are welcome to find alternatives and no google has nothing even close to this. No one really has when you look at it from a holistic point of view, which I would normally recommend.

The holistic view is exactly why Adobe Air is bad.

It's not standard and it limits accessibility.

So does Firefox plugins, I don't see anyone leeching out against that. It's a weird puritan view.

Flash is as standard as you can get and air is just an extension off that allowing you to do more stuff off line.

Flash is not as standard as you can get.

The web standards are HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Flash is neither of those. The specification is not controlled by a governing body. It is controlled by one company.

Talking about Firefox plugins is straw man, has nothing to do with this conversation and I don't know any websites that require a Firefox plugin to work correctly. If they exist, I don't use them.

saying that flash is not a de facto standard is surely missing the big picture on this. Sorry but what would you call the standard for showing video if not flash? What would you call the standard for doing animation or another other sort of rich manipulation.

Just because it's not open does not mean that it's not a standard.

i can't speak for pclark, but i can tell you why i'm against flash/air/etc: the web should be based on free and open standards. the fact that no single company controls the internet is what makes it great.

does anybody remember what things were like before the internet was widely available to everybody? personally, i used compuserve. they were able to charge hideous rates per minute, because they were a de facto monopoly.

allowing a company like adobe to control such a huge swath of the internet is a step backwards towards the compuserve days.

And we all know that Java on the desktop has been such a great success..

Google gears , Mozilla Prism are all a different genre. If you are planning to build an "occasionally connected app" that lives within the browser, Gears is a good choice. AIR is for building desktop apps.

If you are a web developer and knows Javascript (and/or Flash), you can build great apps that works nicely on desktop with Adobe AIR. AIR doesn't force developers to build custom chrome for apps. By default AIR renders the app in OS's native chrome. But if a developer chooses to, he can go for custom chrome .Thats it.

AIR is a runtime (more like Java ) for running AIR apps. You needn't "open an Adobe Air" at any point. Just install the apps you really want and use it.

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