I previously muttered something about the iPad not running Flash which, I've discovered, is more to do with mobile versions of Apple Safari not running Flash plugins rather than the mobile OSX rejecting it altogether. But it still didn't explain how Wired had created their 'old/new media mashup of disappointment' that I linked to and whinged about last week. Then I stumbled upon this post in the NYTimes:
So...it's run on Adobe Air.
A confession. I've always had a relative amount of confusion with Adobe Air - mainly because I'm not sure exactly what it does or what I can use it for. I remember getting a press release about it in my inbox a while ago that said it had something to do with mobile phones. Or moving things about on a page. Or 'fun' games. This was in a pre-iPhone age however - before people discovered you can sell a flashing line on a screen that makes an unconvincing whooshing noise to the world for £1.79 as an 'interactive application' (step forward the stunningly weak Star Wars LightSabre app).
Now we know that anything 'interactive' sells, and has become the disposable cash heavy AB1 demographics all time new-super-favorite-shiny-thing. And now we also know that every publisher in the land is shouting, "I want one of those application things made...apparently it makes cash or something...I WANT INTERNET MONEY! GIVE ME INTERNET MONEY!" rather than asking, "does our brand fit this technology, and if it does, do we need an application? Does our level of UI and demographic fit this level of technology? Can we use it's specification to improve our brand or will it show weaknesses in our brand / digital investment / knowledge of our customers?"
Apple has it's own development kit for it's applications which is massive (6GB or something), which last time I checked, didn't have any Adobe branding on it anywhere. CS Suite 4 has Apple exports (as does After Effects CS3, I seem to remember), but the motherload will apparently land in CS5 - which early reports are promising will be fully iPod/iPhone/iWhatever compliant.
This is good news - given the huge cost of these suites and licences, most publishers are now slowly moving from CS1 to CS3, so that means they should be iPhone AND old media compliant sometime around...oooh 2017?
So...what does Adobe Air do again? Is it a plugin for the CS Suite? Am I using it without realising? The only programme I've ever notice running it is TweetDeck. Clearly I'm being ignorant of it - if it bypasses the need for Flash plug-ins, then this can only be a good thing - but I've not yet worked with a Digital creative department that have been shouting about it, nor a developer that keeps shouting it's name at every problem I pose.
Strange. So this week I'm going to investigate what it actually does.
Hopefully it does something AMAZING.
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