The AIR for Android runtime is now available in Android Market, enabling developers to push mobile AIR apps built with Adobe’s developer platform. You’ll need a handset equipped with Android 2.2 (Froyo) and obviously this doesn’t mean you’ll be able to run your native AIR desktop apps like you know them on your phone.
They’ll need to be specifically built for mobile devices, as Adobe evangelist Ryan Stewart points out. → Read More
Last fall, TechCrunch50 startup ClientShow presented its innovative application to help creative, advertising and marketing professionals show, pitch, share and sell their work to clients more effectively through real-time collaboration and communication. Similar to a WebEx for creative professionals, ClientShow allows users to essentially create a “virtual agency” to collaborate and share ideas with clients. This week, the startup is debuting its platform in private beta. We have 1000 invites for Techcrunch readers here.
The application, which is built on Adobe Air, includes a dashboard which lets the agency view client lists, projects and pitch sessions at a single glance. The dashboard acts as an organizational launching pad, where you can see attached notes and images about upcoming pitches and a schedule of sessions. The second feature is a “work” section which actually lets you set up and prepare for the sessions. You can drag and drop your files into the application, where you can view the projects. → Read More
A mere week after Adobe Systems reported that it would be shedding nearly 700 employees or 9% of its total worldwide workforce, the company is releasing two highly anticipated new products that have been in the works for a while: Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2.0.
Both of the products are being released with a ‘beta’ label at the same time for all 3 major operating systems (Windows, Mac and Linux) and x86-based netbooks, and are available now via Adobe Labs.
People who were still hoping for a beta release of the new Flash Player for mobile will be somewhat disappointed by the fact that they’ll have to exercise even more patience. → Read More
We were plagued all day today at the TechCrunch offices with a faulty Yammer Air app. Updates weren’t working or were seriously delayed, and most of us just moved over to the web version to get reliable service. We rely heavily on Yammer to communicate asynchronously across our very distributed team (three continents). I didn’t realize how heavily until today when the service wasn’t working properly.
I assumed the problem was Yammer, and emailed for support, but they threw their hands up. We narrowed down the problem – it was affecting only those of us on Macs with the Leopard operating system (not the brand new Snow Leopard, which would make more sense). Other people were discovering the same thing and Tweeting about it.
Adobe was responding promptly to inbound messages to their Twitter account, but didn’t seem to know what the problem was, either. And, oddly, Robin Wauters, who’s on a Vista machine, complained of issues as well.
We’ve heard scattered reports of Tweetdeck and other Air Apps having issues today as well. Anyone else out there notice any problems today? Adobe says they didn’t push any updates to Air today, and nothing changed on our machines. It’s a mystery. → Read More
We’ll say it right off the bat: there’s a good chance you have a recent version of Adobe Reader installed on your computer, so that probably means you’ve also installed Adobe AIR, the company’s cross-platform runtime environment for RIAs, as well as the Acrobat.com application. You may not even be aware those came bundled, but you still have the option to uninstall both and still keep Adobe Reader. Glad we got that out of the way.
On to the news: by means of a blog post, Adobe Systems has just confirmed the number of installs for Adobe AIR that had been floating around the Web ever since CTO Kevin Lynch mentioned something along those lines at the recent Flash Camp Keynote in San Francisco: 200 million, double the amount the company touted at the end of January 2009. → Read More
Adobe has announced that they’ve recorded 100 million successful installations of Adobe AIR, the company’s cross-platform runtime environment for RIAs, at the same time boasting that the newest version of Adobe Flash Player (10) was installed on over half of computers worldwide in just the first two months of its release.
The company made the announcement at the Adobe MAX Japan event, notably less than one year after the official release of Adobe AIR.
Adobe says the 100 million mark for Adobe AIR installs is a minimum for the total install base of the AIR runtime (read: they think it’s actually more than that) since they only count the ones that are deemed 100% successful (i.e. they can be confirmed by code running after the installation). As for developers building Web applications using the Adobe Flash Platform, the company claims that in the last 12 months there have been over 1 million downloads of the AIR software development kit (SDK), open source Flex framework and Adobe Flex Builder. → Read More
Realizing that Flash is a better name than Flex for a platform, Adobe is now referring to everything it does related to Flash (including the Flash Player, Adobe AIR, Flex developer tools, and Flash media servers) as the Flash Platform. That’s what I’ve been calling it anyway, so I’m glad they finally caught up.
Beyond the marketing shift, Adobe will be making some more significant announcements at its MAX developer conference this week. Here’s a summary:
1. Release of Adobe AIR 1.5. The Adobe AIR client now has better performance and memory handling, but most importantly it supports Flash Player 10 and Webkit (which is what the mobile browsers in both the iPhone and Android are based on). Flash Player 10 means more 3-d graphics. This version of AIR will also include an encrypted database that should appeal to developers of enterprise apps. → Read More
TokBox, the impressive video chat startup that doesn’t require any kind of extra software, has launched a new AIR app that will bring the web service’s easy setup to the desktop. Thanks to Adobe’s AIR platform, the software will be cross-compatible and available for Windows, Mac, and Linux users. The client offers a very simple interface that should be familiar to anyone who has ever used Skype. Users can access all of TokBox’s standard features, which include Video Calls, Instant Messages, and Video Mail. Beyond the easy interface, the client also improves on the TokBox experience by giving users instant notification whenever a contact initiates a chat with them, and also allows them to set their availability status so that others know when they can be contacted. The app also generates a standard TokBox link, so that users can invite their friends to the chat even if they don’t have the client. The new client should appeal to frequent users of the site, but it seems a little counterintuitive – TokBox is special because you don’t need to use a client, as you do with competitors like Skype or chat networks like AIM and MSN. The release of a desktop client pits TokBox even more directly against these massive networks, and makes it clear that the company isn’t satisfied with just solving a problem (easy browser-based video chat) – they’re looking to take on the big guns. The new client’s no-hassle setup and universal compatibility make it a strong addition to TokBox’s quickly expanding offerings, which include a recently launched Firefox extension that integrates with Facebook Chat, and integration with Meebo. CrunchBase Information Tokbox Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
Lest you all think I’m a nefarious, profit-hating music pirate , I bring word of Beatport’s latest innovation in online music distribution. The music site has developed an Adobe AIR download client that brings the fun of clicking “download now” from your Web browser to a stand-alone program. (If you use twhirl, and follow our sorry lot on Twitter , then you already have AIR installed.) Aside from allowing you to change the downloaded songs’ file-naming conventions (who doesn’t just re-tag everything in iTunes anyway?), there doesn’t seem to be any real advantage to using the new AIR downloader other than novelty. But what a novelty! Adobe AIR is sorta what Java was supposed to be, a multi-platform development language. Something like that. I just bought Couture’s “Afterglow (Tom Neville’s At Your Feet Vocal)” and everything went smoothly, aside for that fact that it cost $1.50 and no one in America listens to progressive house. Look what I do now, buy music. → Read More
Today, Coghead is introducing the 2.0 version of its DIY, Web-based, enterprise-application development service. The site boasts a new user interface (screen shots below) based on Adobe Flex, with 50 new features and performance that is three times faster than the previous version. Basically, this amounts to a massive upgrade of its Website, but calling it Coghead 2.0 lets the company make a big deal about it. Some of the new features include a redesigned authoring environment, new drag and drop widgets, and support for Open ID. Coghead is also now hosted on Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) Web service. “Amazon knows a lot more about running data centers than we do,” CEO Paul McNamara says of the move to Amazon. The way he sees it, he is now offering an easy on-ramp for anyone who wants to create an Amazon-hosted application simply by using Coghead. The move to Adobe Flex is what gives the site its performance boost. On Flex versus Ajax, McNamara says: A lot of people are talking about Ajax, but we see a world that goes beyond Ajax. What attracted him to Flex was the cross-platform, cross-browser interoperability and the prospect of creating offline apps with Adobe AIR. He expects to offer offline capabilities to Coghead users by the middle of 2008. Coghead has attracted 25,000 registered users since launching last April, but its ambition, says McNamara, is to go after the “50 million businesses that don’t have a server.” It still has a long way to go, but this upgrade should help it attract its next set of users. CrunchBase Information Coghead Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
Adobe moved its new Apollo Platform forward this evening by releasing the beta version (the previous Apollo release was a developer preview). They’ve also renamed the platform to Adobe Integrated Runtime. They’re referring to it as “Adobe AIR” (meaning Adobe is in the name twice, but who’s counting). The new version fully supports HTML and Ajax, meaning Apollo applications can be created without using any Flash at all. They are also releasing an extension to Dreamweaver web development software. Adobe is also now saying that AIR will be fully launched by end of year. Our previous coverage of Adobe AIR is here. The Adobe AIR site is here. → Read More
The Digg API Visualization Contest held to celebrate the launch of the Digg API is now in its final stages with 10 shortlisted candidates. Four of the ten finalists are Abode Apollo based applications, remarkable for a platform launched just over 2 months ago. The four Apollo based finalists: D’Lite is an Apollo application that utilizes Digg’s API to retrieve data, information, and processes. Features include pagination, favorites, network detection, and smart auto refresh. Digg Watch is a tool that lets users browse Digg and grab information from stories, like who Dugg what stories and how many Diggs a story gets over time. A nifty tool in looking up user activity. Mini Digg allows users to view stories and see the story activity. A story tracking feature allows users to save favorite stories for future tracking. DiggGraphr is a desktop application that lets users browse Digg stories in treemaps. The application allows customization as well as choice of Digg Channel. All four have individual appeal and are generally clever implementations of data pulled from Digg and generated under Apollo. Voting closes May 30. → Read More
At the Web 2.0 Expo, online auction giant eBay seems to finally be rethinking their user experience with the announcement of a new Apollo application currently called “Project San Dimas” released into a limited beta. The new application is meant to make buying and selling items on eBay more efficient, competing with third party “Power User” auction service giants Vendio and Marketworks, and the Y Combinator upstart Auctomatic. No word on whether it was named after the patron saint of reformed thieves (fraud detection?) or referencing the quiet suburb that served as the backdrop to “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure”. The project was started last year by Alan Lewis of the eBay Developers Program, and eventually became an internal initiative for eBay after being demoed last year at Adobe MAX in Las Vegas. Ryan Stewart blogged the demo and Rob Abbott, a member of the San Dimas team, also has some coverage. San Dimas features a UI created by EffectiveUI and uses eBay’s API’s to make creating, and managing auctions easier and faster. Because it’s written in Apollo, the program can improve performance by cutting down on repetitive requests for data, caching it locally instead. The application will also feature real-time auction monitoring and allow sellers to add in pictures directly uploaded from webcams and cameras. Today’s release is made on the backdrop of a continuing controversy between Microsoft’s new Silverlight and Adobe’s Apollo, outlined by the WSJ today. Microsoft has already effectively lost as an online video standard to Adobe’s Flash. Silverlight marks the begining of a new battle over web standards as the two companies fight over the tools that will shape the future of web applications. There is a video demoing the application here. image courtesy Rob Abbott → Read More
Adobe just announced that it’s much anticipated Apollo platform is now available for developers. The software developers kit can be downloaded at adobe.com/go/apollo. Although this is the official release of the SDK, many developers have been working with Apollo for quite some time. Ryan Stewart recently covered the some of the better Apollo demos from an event they put on last month. See more on the launch from his ZDNet blog. Readers have noticed our recent infatuation with the Apollo platform. I honestly believe that entirely new classes of companies can be built on this platform, which takes Flash, HTML and javascript completely outside of the browser and interacts with the file system on a PC. Photos, music, email and many other everyday tasks make a lot of sense in a single environment that is both local and in the cloud simultaneously. There is going to be a lot of creativity coming off of this platform over the near term. → Read More
There were a bunch of product demos today at Adobe’s Engage event, but there were a few that stood out and should have a big impact on the startup world. They also happened to be some of the best demos of the day. Virtual Ubiquity – Rick Treitman demoed their word processor application, BuzzWord, which was built entirely in Flex 2 and looks like it could be a direct competitor to Google Docs. The team focused heavily on making sure pagination and typeography were first class, something Flash has been bad at. They’ve created a great UI around the document workflow and have features like ruler tooltips when embedding assets that help people work with their documents. They are focusing on the collaborative document space so that users can be designated as reviewers, read-only, or actual authors and discuss the document. They are aiming for a public beta later this summer. Scrybe – Faizan Budar presented Scrybe and showed the features that were in the video that generated so much buzz. He demoed all three major features live and made a point of saying that everything in the video is now working in the application. He showed off the calendar portion of the application, which has a great UI, the “PaperVision” which allows you to print your information into special pocket size chunks, and the option to save content to your Scrybe account from any website. The user interface is clean, useful, and it all works offline. They’ve opened up the beta to a limited number of people and hope to open it up to the general public after their next round of features are complete. yourminis – Alex Bard, the CEO of Goowy Media , demoed what yourminis is working on. A lot of it has been covered by TechCrunch, but they really dug into Apollo and the API that they plan to release next week. With Apollo, they are building out a widget platform that will touch the web, embeddable properties, and the desktop. Alex took a yourmini widget and dragged it to the desktop straight from the browser which made for a poweful demo. Their API is going to enable developers to create their own widgets on the yourminis platform. They built a Twitter widget using the API that is great, so I think content providers are going to be excited about the freedom that the API → Read More
I’m at the Adobe Engage event with a bunch of other bloggers including David Berlind, Tim O’Reilly, Robert Scoble and → Read More
Undoubtedly you’ve heard the term “Rich Internet Application” (RIA) with increasing frequency lately. Sometimes you hear about it in context of Ajax, sometimes with Flash, and now even Microsoft gets talked about as having an RIA solution with “WPF/E”. The reality is that this is still a very unknown subset of the technology world and anyone who tries to define it (myself included) is fighting an uphill battle. However, there is one technology which has sparked quite a bit of interest across the board, Adobe’s soon-to-be-released Apollo platform. For those who aren’t familiar with it, Apollo is a cross-platform runtime that is still in pre alpha and allows developers to build applications for the desktop using web technologies including Flash, HTML and PDF. While Web 2.0 has prominently declared the desktop dead, its demise has been greatly exaggerated which is why I implore you to take a look at Apollo. Mike did an interview with Adobe senior vice president and chief software architect Kevin Lynch about Apollo over on TalkCrunch and I recently interviewed Mike Downey, the Sr. Product Manager for Apollo. I also interviewed Kevin Lynch himself about Apollo earlier this year. The reason Apollo is so important is because it changes the rules of the game. It is taking the technologies and tenants of the web and bringing them to the desktop. Apollo is cross platform and gives web developers access to things like the file system and close integration with the operating system in a set of APIs that are the same whether you’re writing in JavaScript or ActionScript. The web fostered an explosion in the creativity of application development and Apollo will undoubtedly do the same for desktop development. So as entrepreneurs and developers, you need to be aware of the potential impact of Apollo. The desktop will see the same creative infusion that the web once did, but with more features and with the web’s most ubiquitous display formats (HTML, Flash and PDF). Early adopters to the platform have the potential to reap a bonanza and bring about the gold-rush like mentality that swept the web. Is someone going to figure out how to serve AdWords on the desktop with Apollo’s online/offline capabilities? Is it a new way to deliver rich media? A killer solution for email that spans web and desktop and integrates IM or VoIP? A new way to tie customers back to → Read More
2007 will bring the launch of the much anticipated Adobe Apollo platform, a cross platform run time that will allow developers to take rich internet applications, whether they be built on Flash, HTML, JavaScript and/or Ajax, and turn them into desktop applications. Apollo will be useful for running desktop versions of critical web applications like email and calendaring, where offline access and application speed is sometimes important. Potential developers are already taking notice: eBay is working on a project called “San Dimas” to run on Apollo, although there are no announced plans to release it yet. We’re excited about Apollo because it has the potential to be the launchpad for entirely new classes of startups. It could be the technology to watch for 2007. And Adobe is certainly counting on it to drive future revenue. I had the opportunity to interview Kevin Lynch, Adobe’s senior vice president and chief software architect, about the upcoming launch of Apollo. Steve Gillmor joined me as well. Listen to the 37 minute podcast over on TalkCrunch, and let us know what you think Apollo’s “killer app” might be. Screenshots below. → Read More
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