…two AIR applications called Tweetdeck and Twhirl, which make the Twitter microblogging service vastly more useful.
Macromedia succeeded in spreading Flash far and wide, and Adobe likewise managed to convince millions to install its PDF reader plug-in software. Adobe now hopes for the same success with AIR, and it's showing some success.
Adobe's goal is to have AIR running on 100 million machines by the first anniversary of the 1.0 release in February 2008. "It looks like we're on track right now," Lynch said. And one million copies of the AIR software development kit have been downloaded.
Adobe will be touting new AIR and Flash tools at the show, too, though only in "technology preview" form:
- Alchemy, to be shown on Tuesday, lets programs written in the C or C++ languages run within Flash Player. That could help companies repurposing in-house software
- 'Gumbo', a new version of Adobe Flex Builder, is designed to make programming easier for those familiar with scripting languages such as PHP, Turner said
- 'Thermo', formally called Adobe Flash Catalyst, is designed to let people quickly create an application's interface in another application — by Adobe Illustrator CS4, for example — then add the interactive instructions to the interface elements
Flash and Flex have rivals, though. Most obvious is Microsoft's Silverlight, which has begun to spread, and which has the advantage of compatibility with the .NET programming environment and language many Windows programmers are already familiar with.
Adobe is aware of the Silverlight threat, though. For example, When Microsoft started touting its high-definition video support, Adobe put the Flash Player 10 development on hold, added the feature to Flash Player 9 to answer Microsoft more quickly, then resumed development of version 10, Lynch said.
Making mobile a priority
Adobe will also show Flash Player 10 running on a smartphone during the show, Turner said, and Lynch plans to talk about a "sea change" to include mobile devices as more than just an afterthought.
"There's going to be wholesale reversal to start thinking of mobile devices first, not as an adjunct or secondary," Lynch said. "If you're designing content — applications, video, web pages — you've got to starting thinking about mobile."
The new iPhone era of mobile devices that are appreciably more powerful and equipped with a mature web browser has led Adobe to merge its formerly separate mobile Flash development team with the desktop Flash team, Lynch said.
But for now, there's no Flash available on Apple's iPhone. (YouTube videos, for example, are transcoded into a different streaming format.) Adobe has, however, completed a software development kit that lets people create Flash applications for the iPhone, Lynch said.
"We are developing Flash player for the iPhone. To release software on the iPhone requires Apple's agreement. We have to make it work great, and need to get their agreement to have it released," Lynch said. "We would love to see Flash on the iPhone."
