But Adobe Air is multi-platform, after all.

Air is a multi-platform environment for running applications created in Flash, Flex, HTML, and Ajax, which Adobe began to slowly push and promote in the second half of the last decade, with the first beta appearing in 2007. The goal was simple: to enable developers to create a single application for all possible platforms and operating systems. Adobe assumed that users would appreciate having the same-looking software on all platforms. On the one hand, this was intended to compete with desktop Java, and on the other hand, with development tools for individual operating systems.

Adobe wanted to dominate all computer environments, from various desktop operating systems to smartphones and tablets, where its Flash/AIR could reign supreme. In addition, the interface would be Adobe’s, not the operating system’s, so users would have no trouble switching between applications developed with Adobe tools. It was an interesting idea, but it didn’t catch on. AIR is used to create small utilities based on the fact that graphic designers often work with Flash, while programmers tend to hate it.

A new version was planned for release in 2010 as part of Adobe Creative Suite 5. With Flash Professional CS5, developers would have been able to develop applications for personal computers, Apple iPhones, and the new iPad, with future support announced for mobile devices based on Android, BlackBerry, and Palm webOS. The first release of the package did not include this.

However, Apple has already made it clear in the past that it does not intend to add Flash to its mobile platform – and therefore does not like Air either. There were a number of reasons for this. According to Apple, Flash is a proprietary technology (although parts of it have now been released under open source licenses) that duplicates HTML5, which Apple is betting on as the industry standard. Among other things, this is because Apple has contributed significantly to HTML5 with components developed as part of Quicktime, something it had previously failed to do.

In addition, Flash is problematic in terms of security, and Adobe does not provide sufficient support and security for it. Apple has pointed out several times the historical experience when Adobe left security flaws in Flash for Mac for a long time and the Mac version of the plugin was two versions lower than for Windows.

The context of this story

But Adobe Air is multi-platform, after all.

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