I’ve been having a look at Adobe AIR this evening, just to get an idea of what it’s all about. The first impression I get from reading the website is that it’s a pseudo-browser-come-Flash player. Which isn’t really that new, or exciting. Reading their Browser vs. Desktop app comparison, I’m not sure they’re really selling it well to people like me. Let me start with the way I see technology moving forward at the moment. There’s a slowly growing movement towards Netbooks and cloud computing, and I see that as a really dynamic way of moving forward. The need for powerful clients are hugely diminished, and the power is left at the hands of other people who can afford to buy huge datacentres to power widely used apps like Gmail and Facebook, as well as office tools like Google Documents. There’s movements towards putting everything on the web, to the extent of some people experimenting – and even making a living out of – webtops, such as eyeOS and other similar products. Personally, I think having an “OS” on the web is going a little too far, but there is huge potential for moving to only using web apps.
Anyway, I digress a little, but my overall point is that we should be pushing for web-orientated services over desktop apps. I mean the first two points in their comparison are real bonuses for regular web apps really. “Applications can be easily discovered, explored, and used.” and “No application installation is necessary.” The plus for the desktop of the former part is “Installed applications have more persistence, power, and functionality.”… well that’s true to a certain extent, but persistence exists in web apps already – in the form of logins, which can be things like Windows Live Passports, Google Accounts, or truly (going) global logins such as OpenID.
Both browsers and Adobe AIR apps are cross-platform, Javascript and Flash are already in both, and there’s few other real advantages… the advantage of hosting a website is that when you update it, the changes are immediately available, rather than clients having to update.
I see it as a step backwards really – there’s been a huge push for using everything on the web recently, and having Adobe AIR apps are just like having new desktop applications. Where’s the advantage of that? You just have to install and update yet more software. I’ve got enough bloody software to keep updated as it is! Not only that, it’s just no good for those of us on the move, always using different workstations, maybe at work, at home and your laptop, and your T-Mobile G1 with Android… Personally I’d prefer a tool I can use on all of those that I don’t have to download. Something like Google Calendar that I can access everywhere to manage my life schedule, and something like Google Docs so that if I’m somewhere and I need to look at the list of Christmas presents I’ve purchased for Hannah, then I can load it straight up.
I think I’ve made my point, but in a really long round-about sort of way. Although I sound like I’m shutting Adobe AIR right out, I’m not actually, I just don’t see the point. It’s just another cool idea, but I don’t really see a future for it, ya see?
