Interview with Adobe AIR Evangelist Ryan Stewart

Filed under: Developer, Internet, Features, Windows, Macintosh, Adobe, DLS Interviews

Ryan Stewart, Evangelist for Adobe's Integrated Runtime project (AIR), takes a few minutes to tell us what all the fuss is about. Ryan taking part in Adobe's live cross-country bus tour to promote AIR. The tour kicks July 10th at the Elysian Brewing Company in downtown Seattle.

DS: Can you briefly describe Adobe AIR?

Ryan: Adobe AIR is a cross-platform runtime that allows you to build desktop applications with web technologies. It runs on top of your operating system so that developers can build applications in AIR that take advantage of OS features without having to develop the application for a specific operating system. And instead of needing to learn desktop languages like C or Coco, you can take Ajax or Flash and build desktop apps with them.

DS: Why should consumers and average computers users be excited about Adobe AIR?

Ryan: I think the biggest reason that users should be excited is because they'll have a lot more applications to choose from. Web apps have become all the rage and part of the reason is that they're easy to build and people can jump in quickly. We wanted to capture some of that with AIR and bring it to the desktop. Hopefully users will see more apps like the Pownce desktop client, Finetune and Tweetr.

DS: Can you give an example of how an Adobe AIR application could use a web service and a person¹s computer hard drive to build something that isn¹t possible with the web alone?

Ryan: Being able to read and write to the hard drive gives you a lot of storage options and also lets you hook into parts of native applications. For instance the Finetune desktop client looks at your iTunes.xml file and figures out which artists you might like. It then allows you to listen to a radio station based on those artists. With AIR you can also associate files with your application, so you can create your own new file format or write a viewer for other file types.

DS: What is the coolest AIR application you¹ve seen so far?

Ryan: I really like the way Finetune integrates with their website, but I just got to check out Pownce, Kevin Rose's new project, and their desktop client is pretty cool. For pure silliness Dryerfox is classic. There are a ton of AIR applications at AirApps.net and ApolloHunter.com for people to try.

DS: What type of services or assists can Adobe AIR applications connect to?

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Interview with Adobe AIR Evangelist Ryan Stewart originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 09 Jul 2007 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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