http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_AIR

September 4, 2007 8:04 PM

Looking for a simple web application idea (built in Html & Javascript) to demonstrate Adobe Air.

I'm trying to come up with an idea for a super simple, perhaps even stupid, web application that I can convert to an Adobe Air application. For example, I was thinking of creating an application that would allow someone to type in some text into a textfield, click submit and then it would populate the textfield in this AT & T text-to-speech thingie.But I'm not sure I can even do that and perhaps there are better ideas . . .

Points awarded for ideas that actually demonstrate why AIR is cool.

posted by jeremias to computers & internet (5 comments total)

Well, apollo, or air as i guess it's now called is basically just a way to get rid of that pesky browser. So any demo would have to do something a browser can't do.

the demo i saw a while back was an alternate interface to ebay. But other than being able to upload photos easier, the whole thing seemed more gee-whiz than practical. The fact that you're asking this question instead of just being amazed at the possibilities of the technology isn't a good sign either.
posted by kamelhoecker at 8:41 PM on September 4, 2007

AIR is basically OS X Dashboard widgets as stand-alone, cross-platform applications, so you might want to start with replicating some popular Dashboard widgets. But I agree with what kamelhoecker said; the coolest tech is innovative, and innovation isn't really something anyone else can give you.
posted by scottreynen at 9:36 PM on September 4, 2007

Don't know if this helps, but Pownce has a Mac app that's on Air. It's pretty stable, although the site doesn't refresh much - I suspect that's because of the data (i.e. people thought it was hip, then stopped using it).
posted by rmm at 10:52 PM on September 4, 2007

As for "why Air?", you might look at the examples page and see what you think of their showcase.
posted by boo_radley at 5:54 AM on September 5, 2007

As kamelhoecker said, you need to do something in AIR that you can't do in a browser. So, what are the things you can't do in a browser?

* Use web applications when your network link is down
* Easy interfacing with other applications on your setup (think copy-paste, drag & drop)
* Simple loading of files on your hard drive without having to upload them first (the Salsa demo on the AIR examples page is a good example of this)
* Easily save and load files

You can probably think of other things. Any application that shows any of these features, and preferably combines them, would show the advantages of AIR over a web app.
posted by husky at 6:29 AM on September 12, 2007