27 Useful Adobe AIR Applications

Adobe AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) is a free runtime environment that can be used by the developers to develop highly interactive internet and media applications for multiple platforms. It enables web developers to utilize their current development skills and deliver rich applications and content to user’s desktop. It combines the web development technologies like Ajax, HTML, Flash and Flex so that developers with existing knowledge of these technologies need not learn a new framework and they can utilize Adobe AIR integrated platform to deploy extremely sophisticated internet applications. Today, we present 30 Useful Adobe AIR applications to give you an overview as to what you can achieve with AIR.

Rich Media

Flickr Flipper Flickr Flipper allows you to search for Flickr photos in general or by specific users. It allows one by one picture navigation and also allows you to download the photo on your computer. Blokt Blokt is a game built with Adobe AIR with the concept of removing the red block out of the maze of other blocks by sliding them out of the way.

Business Applications

eBay Desktop eBay Desktop is an AIR application that provides a way to shop at world's largest marketplace on your desktop. Salient features of eBay Desktop include 1 click search filters, alerts, history, and feeds.

Task Management

Doit.im Doit.im lets you focus on items on hand instead of worrying about pending ideas in your mind. It manages your tasks and organizes the process of your work so that you feel easy when faced with bulk complicated projects. This way you can just focus on what you are working at the moment instead of thinking about previous or future work. AgileAgenda Agile Agenda is a project management software that allows project managers to enter data about thier activities. The software dynamically adjusts varying conditions during the project lifecycle. Agile Agenda supports the sharing of data through XML, PDF, and a web interface. Klok Klok is a time management application that allows you to accurately track how much time you have spent on past projects and estimate better timeline for future projects. It makes easier to manage time for meetings, documentation, follow ups, sales calls etc.

Social Media

skimmer Skimmer is an Adobe AIR desktop application designed to streamline, beautify, and enhance the experience of participating in your most frequently used social networking activities. It improves upon your everyday interaction with multiple social networks by providing a rich experience that is particularly suited to multimedia related content. twhirl twhirl is a desktop client for the popular microblogging platform Twitter that builds on the very cool Adobe AIR runtime. Spaz Spaz is a free, open-source, award-winning twitter client developed with Adobe AIR offering features such as access to direct messages and replies, CSS themes, and event sounds. Spaz was the winner of Best HTML Community App in the AIR Developer Derby. Posty Posty, an award winning application, will automatically deliver your messages to the services you select among Twitter, Jaiku, Tumblr, Friendfeed and Identi.ca. facedesk facedesk is a desktop application that will handle all your facebook related stuff, so you don't need to open the browser for facebook related activities. Facebook for Adobe AIR Facebook Desktop for AIR is a new desktop application developed with Adobe AIR using facebook API. It goes through all the authorizations and deliver the news feed on your desktop. You can publish your content straight from your desktop to your wall. AirTalkr AirTalkr is a multi-protocol Instant Messenger that connects to MSN, Yahoo!, GTalk, AOL and ICQ. It also connects to other Web 2.0 services like Flickr and YouTube. While chatting with your friends, you can browse flickr photos and youtube videos. You can also view each of your buddies AirCard, a profiling system in AirTalkr that gathers your buddies profile from the web.

Feeds

ShareFire ShareFire is a news aggregator that allows you to share stories via AIM, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, email and more. It allows you to read all the stuff at one place and share from there.

Designing

WebKut WebKut is an AIR application that takes screenshots of full or part of the web pages. It provides you 3 capture options: the entire page, the current view, or only a selection. WebSnapshot With WebSnapShot, you can take the snapshot by entering URL of just dragging the website into the application. You can create Thumbnail, Browser size and Full page screenshots. Icon Generator Icon Generator is an Adobe AIR application that allows you to create CS3 or Web 2.0 style icons in three easy steps. You can create icons in multiple sizes. Livebrush Livebrush is an Adobe AIR drawing application that employs an easy-to-use brush tool. Packed with several other designing controls, Livebrush offers a fun and unique way to create graphics.

Development

Lupo Manager Lupo Manager extracts strings from your source code, manages resource bundles and implement i18n logic in your Adobe Flex® / Adobe AIR applications in a very productive manner. Lita Lita is a free SQLite database administration tool for Windows, MacOSX and Linux.

Google

GMDesk GMDesk is an application that lets you run Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Maps as a stand-alone application to do all your mail handling, calendar event reading etc. with no need to open it up in a web browser, or have it clutter your workspace. GMDesk offers an easy menu as well as keyboard shortcuts to switch between different Google services, and you can specify what default service you want the application to start with. It also supports Google Apps access as well. Polaris Polaris is a desktop widget for Google Analytics. It provides an easy way to view your data instantly with 8 standard reports.

Miscellaneous

Moderator is a WordPress Plugin and associated desktop application, built using Adobe AIR, that allows you to view and moderate comments from your desktop. Features include are viewing unmoderated comments, dock and system tray notifications of the number of unmoderated comments, accept, delete, and spam comments from within the desktop client, close application window, or minimize it to the system tray while running. Xdrive Desktop Live Xdrive® Desktop Lite is a desktop client for Xdrive that enables users to drag and drop files and folders directly to their Xdrive account from their local computers. Users can also browse, search and publish files to Xdrive using this desktop client. Doc? Doc? allows you to view, search and bookmark all your favorite ASDocs. It can also handle some legacy books like the ones you find in Flash CS3 and older. Online books can be downloaded and viewed directly in Doc?. Popling The Popling desktop application gives you an extra POP of motivation by showing you a new flash card every few minutes. You can set the frequency of the pop so you won't get disturbed when you don't want to be. The idea is simple you can learn while you work with short quick questions. With correct answer you move on to the next question, and with wrong you can either try again or skip to the next one.

Further Resources

Following articles are suggested for further reading:

• Adobe AIR Developer’s Toolbox: Resources And Tutorials
• Adobe AIR - Showcase Applications
• Adobe AIR Application Showcase and Resources

About the author

Muhammad Usama Alam is a software engineer and web developer with over 8 years of experience in designing and developing business solutions for enterprise. You can follow him on Twitter.