Adobe AIR, the Rich Internet Application framework that brings together the responsiveness of the desktop, the connectivity of the web and the dazzling good looks made possible by working in conjunction with other Adobe apps, has hit an important milestone this week. The company announced last night that the software has now been downloaded more than 25 million times.
Update: Adobe PR wrote us to clarify that the announcement is not in fact that 25 million people have downloaded AIR but that 25 million AIR apps have been downloaded. That's less clear and less exciting, but is exactly the kind of PR fluff that agencies issue all too often. Have you got any real news or do you not have any real news? This kind of stuff drives us nuts and we apologize to our readers for the misunderstanding.
If you've been wondering when AIR would become more than an edge case platform to develop on, that time could be now. In fact, more than 850,000 developers have already downloaded the AIR software development kit, according to Adobe's Ryan Stewart. We think this is really good news.
In a typical PR move, Adobe's announcement focuses on adoption of AIR by big brands like AOL, eBay, The Nasdaq Stock Market, Inc. and The New York Times Company. Even more exciting, though, is the world of startups and innovative side projects built on AIR.
We've written extensively about AIR here at RWW. See the following posts to find out more about what the excitement is about.
An overview of AIR's best qualities, like the fact that AIR apps can run on Windows and Mac desktops.
Right: SearchCoders, a communications app for developers, built on AIR. Below: TweetDeck, one of many Twitter clients built on AIR, but our favorite right now.
While video may be moving away from the Rich Internet App paradigm, see Joost's move from the desktop to the web for example, there's a lot of action going on in the RIA space beyond AIR. Not all video players are moving away from the desktop, either. See last week's release of a live streaming player in AIR for "news" from Fox News, for example.
We wrote about several other RIA platforms here in June. Competition is good and thanks to NBC's use of Microsoft's Silverlight to power streaming of the Olympics, Silverlight may very well have far more than 25 million now as well. Adobe's incredible dominance over the publishing technology used by creatives, by video publishers and others requires competition to keep the company honest.
The moral of the story is that RIA platforms and AIR in particular now have a significant install base and offering an application on this exciting new platform will be less onerous to many users than it would have been before. You may still be looked at like a freak if you talk about AIR apps at your family's holiday parties, but at tech parties you should now be in the clear.
Comments
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It's fantastic that Adobe have reached this milestone in such a quick period.
AIR applications are getting better and better all the time, although I'm still awaiting that real killer application to emerge.
As mentioned above, check out the latest reviewed AIR applications, resources and news over at RefreshingApps.com.
Posted by: RefreshingApps | September 9, 2008 11:44 AM
I too hate meaningless PR metrics. At least this one has a bit of substance, albeit presented in a too-easy-to-misread manner. Web 2.0 companies are some of the worst offenders. I still remember one social travel site (whatever that is) talking about how many million miles their members have shared. Considering that most flights are going to be at least 500 miles, and many are much longer, plus each user may share multiple trips, it was just a sleazy way of saying "we have about 1,000 users." I haven't heard about that site since.
Anyway, back from my tangent. Apple just announced 100 million apps downloaded from the AppStore in 60 days. I know these aren't directly comparable, but it doesn't make AIR's 25 million look as good. I tried a half-dozen AIR apps quite a few weeks ago. It reminded me very much of Webstart for Java and that's not a good thing. But Adobe is so much better than Sun at developing for consumers, so maybe AIR will fare better. Somehow I just can't see it being really big, especially as Javascript continues to get faster and more powerful in the browser.
Posted by: Bob | September 9, 2008 12:52 PM
One of my commentors dug into the number question a little bit more. If I understand things correctly, the number of people who have downloaded AIR (in some form or another) is actually higher than that 25 million number. Here's what Phillip said we (Adobe) told him:
"The actual installs of the runtime triggered by installing an application. So, total installs of AIR minus those who installed AIR only. So, assuming that’s accurate, you can easily speculate that many more than 25 million applications have been installed. Sounds like a lot."
I have no idea why we worded the press release like we did, but it's my understanding that our total distribution is higher than the 25 million number because that 25 million is only counting the first application install of a downloaded runtime. Which also means there are a lot more than 25 million apps out there because we aren't counting any installs beyond the first one.
Hopefully that makes some sense....maybe :)
=Ryan
ryan@adobe.com
Posted by: Ryan Stewart | September 9, 2008 1:33 PM
Let me tell you how I "installed" Adobe Air. I need an Acrobat Reader for my new system, so I downloaded the installer from Adobe.com which is 30+MB. I was puzzled why it became that fat but went on installing nonetheless. After installation, a version of Air was put into system WITHOUT TELLING ME. There you go, that's how they distribute Air by bundling it with a much more popular Reader. Needless to say I immediately uninstalled it.
Now think of it: I'm sensitive person, I know Acrobat Reader should not be that fat, I heard of Air before and I actually bothered to check what was installed in my system. If any of the above elements was missing, Air must still be in my computer now. Makes you wonder how many others are trapped in with the same trick.
25M download. What a joke.
Posted by: YuiYose | September 9, 2008 2:35 PM
Congrats to Adobe!
I think Air is a good framework. I can speak upon experience cause I have used it to build an real application. I think it is still young (e.g. lack of control on garbage collection, easy to build memory hungry applications), but I am sure it is the best choice at the moment to build a RIA application.
So congrats again (looking forward for news features and improvements in the next release).
Posted by: funkyboy | September 9, 2008 3:27 PM
Ryan,
That didn't make any sense what's so ever. Also, you guys didn't clarify the seperation between Acrobat 9 and AIR "Applications". 25million Applications with unique keys also sounds misleading when it can be a case of 25million installs of the 1x Application.
Furthermore, Adobe Acrobat Reader + AIR has a really weak dependency here and the realistic situation here is that Adobe AIR is riding on the Acrobat payload.
Reader installs to sneak into the Enterprise undetected so to speak. There's no physical way to opt out of Adobe AIR during Acrobat Reader installation.
850k of the SDK is a number Adobe should of left off the table, given it just told the world that the size of the potential developer base is a lot smaller than expected (in proportion to 25million : 850k?). Assuming folks download the SDK 1:1 is a big leap of faith, furthermore assuming folks whom downloaded the SDK and sustained beyond the download is also a weak spin.
If Google or Microsoft tried to pull a stunt like this, they would of been nailed to the PR cross. I wish journalists would wake up to what Adobe's movements look like as seriously, time's up.
Posted by: Phillip Ramsay | September 9, 2008 9:43 PM
So, people think it's a conspiracy that AIR was bundled with Acrobat? That's H_I_L_A_R_I_O_U_S!
What is the argument against installing AIR if you are a reader of RRW?
@Philip, How about you learn how to write above the 9th grade level? "what's so ever"???? 850K developers is a small number? Do you need some cheese with that?
Posted by: Sam | September 10, 2008 7:47 AM
Hey Phillip,
I think this includes Acrobat installs but I'm not sure what the effect on that is. Acrobat 9 wasn't released that long ago. And I'm not sure what you mean about the unique keys. All we do is track the first installation of an application. If 25 million people downloaded the same application and installed that first, then that's what would register. But considering that eBay desktop had 1,000,000 downloads and Twhirl had 500,000, I think it's considerably more spread out than that, but I don't have any numbers.
I think in the first 6 months, 850k is a pretty solid number. And the "potential" developer base is much larger because we're talking about every Flex and Ajax developer out there. So I'm pretty happy with that SDK number.
=Ryan
ryan@adobe.com
Posted by: Ryan Stewart | September 10, 2008 10:01 AM
Acrobat Reader and AIR would drive significant numbers, given the ubiquity of PDF (you guys know this as why else would piggy back it to sneak into the Enterprise?).
Let's be realistic, eBay 1million was impressive but that's also a powerhouse brand. 500,000 twhirl clients is a bit of a strech given the actual population of twitter that and duplication of installs is something I'd query further.
That all aside, 25million just based on "twitter-like" clients is a massive leap of faith here. The UK Sun AIR client + eBay are probably the only realistic popular AIR clients on the web. Maybe twitter-centric applications could help but twhirl is realistically the only AIR client online for that space?
I'd bet the farm that 2/3rds of this install number is due to Acrobat Reader. You can't opt-out of Adobe AIR with Acrobat Reader and given the press coverage it got on launch until now, let's be utterly realistic here.
Is that bad? no! just the opposite (smart move to piggy back Acrobat Reader), yet Adobe have to start accounting for their PR and number throwing. Putting 25million on the table and not linking it in anyway to Acrobat Reader is irresponsible and cheap marketing tactics. Clearly most aren't buying it and in return the act itself diminishes the possibilities of what AIR has to offer.
As for your remarks around AJAX developers using Adobe AIR? very doubtful. There's practicially no AJAX + AIR solutions around at the moment so I challenge you to provide evidence to support that statement.
Flex developers would be at best, mid-peak 15,000 strong world-wide right now (that's being generous). I'm sure over 150,000+ installs of Flex have occured, but actual sustainable population is at best 15,000. (If you look at the members number on FlexCoders - main stream of the wider web population - 10k currently reside on it alone?)
Posted by: Phillip Ramsay | September 10, 2008 10:46 AM
Ryan,
Anyword on the evidence? also I noticed you deleted your 25million post. Care to share as to why?
Posted by: Phillip Ramsay | October 8, 2008 11:27 PM