Site Specific Browsers Versus Desktop Applications
March 24th, 2008 by Ryan StewartYesterday on TechCrunch was a guest post by Matthew Gertner who works for Prism, a cool technology from Mozilla that lets you create desktop applications out of any website. Matthew does a pretty good job of laying out part of the scene but I think he misses an important point. Site Specific Browsers (SSBs) like Prism are similar but also very different from what AIR does which is let you create real desktop applications with web technologies.
The APIs for Prism are for the most part limited to providing the user a desktop icon, a separate memory instance, and something outside the typical browser chrome. These are all great because as Matthew says, sometimes you don’t want your application stuck between two tabs in the browser. But AIR goes beyond that by exposing a lot more of the OS APIs in the hopes of providing a very robust, cross-platform desktop environment.
With AIR you can go offline or leverage your own chrome just like Prism but you can also talk more closely with the file system. You can register your own file types, you get access to the file system, you can create new native windows, you can create your own native menus, you get access to the OS’ clip board and you can drag and drop data between applications. In an effort to bridge the web-desktop gap a bit you can also send data from your AIR application to the browser. Finetune does this when you have the desktop client open and select a playlist from the web interface. We want you to go out and create real desktop applications with Adobe AIR, not just the same application you’ve been creating inside of the browser. You can reuse a lot of that code, but you have a lot more functionality with AIR if you want to use it.
None of these technologies is stagnant, so it will be great to see it all evolve: WPF from Microsoft, Adobe AIR, Google Gears, and Prism. In the end it means there’s a lot more excitement around desktop applications. And I think most importantly, we can use the best platform for the job, we don’t have to be stuck inside of a browser if we don’t want to be.
I think the biggest challenge for AIR is to find that killer app. The one that bridges the gap between browser and desktop. It’ll be some new hybrid thing that could not exist as either a fully desktop app or a web site. AIR needs a Lotus 123 or a HyperCard app to really bring out all these ideas.
@Andrew: I think you’re right.
I’m a Web developer who’s seen a lot about AIR. It’s definitely a technology that I want to take a deep look at.
But, after my experiences with Flex, where it seems the only good tools are high-priced, I’m wary to move towards it with any haste. Also, some camps are saying that the desktop is dead, so do people really want another desktop app that they need to install, or would they rather use a service providing the same online?
AIR defintely needs an app and more marketing behind it to combat these items, IMO.
~James
I think with AIR it is the best of both-worlds, offline-online. What i think adobe should do is make adobe AIR full functions available as plugins or extension as it is been called now. Not just some quick fast basic thing as it is right now. That way, more designers/developers can develop desktop application quickly, and code writers can extend functionality as so desire. This will have a positive effect on the technology. More people emracing and doing wonderful stuff with it.That’s my take. No more endless hours debugging codes, it is always frustrating, looking at the fact that most creative people want to quickly see their ideas manifest in time.