We saw a lot of AIR applications at this morning’s keynote here at Adobe MAX Europe. AIR lets you take either Flash applications, or Javascript/HTML applications, out of the browser and onto the desktop. The additional richness you get from running outside the browser is currently rather limited – we saw lots of drag-and-drop, because that is one of the few additional things you can do. However, AIR has a huge advantage for web vendors, because it puts their application and/or their content onto the user’s desktop. A great example is an Allurent-developed online shopping catalog called Anthropologie, which we saw this morning. Here’s a quote from the case study, headed “Branded desktop presence”:
“The idea underlying our Adobe AIR applications is to enable retailers to push relevant content to the consumer and let the consumer consider it from the comfort of their desktop,” says Victoria Glickman Hodgkins, vice president of marketing at Allurent. “The retailer avoids mailing a circular or catalog to promote special items, and the consumer can interact with digital catalog information in highly engaging ways.”
Right. Now we realize how the web browser has actually protected us from intrusive commercial presence on our desktop. The beauty of browser-based applications is that they completely disappear when you navigate away from the page, with only perhaps a Favorites shortcut to take us back there when we choose. An AIR application by contrast installs into our machine, probably puts an icon on the desktop, can run minimized and fire system notifications.
This isn’t a bad thing in itself, provided the user remains in control. But how many such applications will you want to install?
Put another way, AIR developers will need to exercise restraint in their efforts to inflict branded desktop presence on hapless users.
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I think there is a tremendous market for applications that have a very narrowly defined function or replicate the functionality of a traditional client-server application but only serve up/hook into relevant commercial sites.
I have a Moto Q through Sprint, and where I work we use Groupwise and the Novell email server instead of the more common Outlook/Exchange set-up that most companies use. Moreover, the only supported smartphone technology supported here are Blackberries, and only then the company-issued ones that go to AVPs and above.
There is absolutely no way for me to quickly enter my work contacts, tasks, and appointments into my Moto Q directly, and even though I have a paid Yahoo!Mail account and use Yahoo!Mobile to sync my phone with my online services, the Web UI that Yahoo! offers-up for Tasks, Notes, and Calendar is inadequate for my needs.
If Yahoo! offered a client-server application or a “super widget” that ran with their widget engine that encapsulated the functionality I need under a single UI, I’d use it in a heartbeat. Moreover, if they profiled me correctly during the installation, they could pitch smartphone applications and mobile services to me all day long and I not only wouldn’t mind, I would probably buy something.
On the other hand, if these AIR-based applications are going to go back to the “good old days” of “free” dial-up Internet service where 2/3 of an 800×600 screen are being eaten-up with seizure-inducing banner advertisements pitching everything from viagra to IT consulting services, forget it.
I have not used the new eBay tool, but from what I have read about it it seems to be the sort of tool I’d enjoy using for a very specific purpose; the fact that it’s interface is heavily branded and done in four-color notwithstanding.