Recently I joined a Pownce network and I saw a desktop application for the whole site. When I wanted to install it, I had to download something called Adobe Air. At first I was not too happy, why do I need to install stuff, why can’t they just make a desktop app?

Well, as I actually installed and looked into it, I found that Adobe Air is actually very cool. From my point of view it brings together the web and my desktop very well. For example, I can view Google Analytics info from my desktop. It saves all this, and I can save my reports, so it functions like a desktop app, but still gets the fresh data from the net. For Pownce I can see my messages and interact with the webpage as I would. Air is also cross-platform, so any OS user can download it and view the same stuff as I do on my Vsta.

One commonality I noticed was that these apps look extremely sleek and well made. This may be because Air is also great from the programmer’s point of view as it uses common language like HTML and such. This allows them to create a nice interface for us, one that also actually works.

All in all, I am very happy with Adobe Air so far, and I will show you the three applications I use right now, although this will probably grow a bit in the future. The only negative side I see is quite a lot of memory usage. Pownce uses about 22.000K of memory, Analytics uses 33.000K and AirTalkr uses 38.000. Compared to Windows Media Player 11 (7.000K) and Outlook (55.000K) this seems like a lot. It’s not bogging my system down yet, but I think they need to chop down the memory usage a bit. Now let me show you the three apps I tried already.

A few notes on Adobe Air

Air is still heavily in development. I haven’t seen any problems with it (apart from a slightly high mem usage) but it’s in beta and new releases will be popping up. It is now at beta 3, but most applications I’ve seen were written for beta2. Pownce for example was written for beta 3 and will not work with the newer version. Both Air and the applications are being updated constantly so be on the lookout for new versions on both sides.

Pownce

Pownce is a social network that is really well suited for people working together, like a network of bloggers for example. It is great to interact, talk about each other’s posts and share some of the new stuff we find. The basis of it is a message board and it transfers very well to Adobe Air.

You can create messages, respond to others, and that’s actually mostly it, but that’s mostly all you do if you do it through your browser. It’s simple and takes a burden off your Firefox. I like to use the net only to browse, I don1t really like having tabs open all the time like Gmail or Blog.

Pownce for Air is a very well written, nicely designed and minimalistic application. I think it captures the essence of Air very well and I hope they put in a few extras, since it’s only in beta.

Analytics Reporting Suite

The complexity and well though out nature of this application really took me by surprise. Apart from looking great it has all the data that your browser based analytics has, and has all the export options too. It is quite quick when changing views and data sets, but it may be a good idea to pre-download all the data in the background.

The way the graphs change is my favorite feature (yes, this is a cardinal question…). They are made up of curvy lines and instead of changing from one graph to the other, the lines bend to change shape and take on the form of the selected graph. A small, but very nice touch.

Navigation is through a menu on the left, making it a breeze, and since this is all built in, changing through these doesn’t take time, only the loading of the date. The view is also tabbed, meaning that if you take a look at the overview, than at visitor loyalty, the overview remains open on another tab, so you can switch back and forth. A well thought out layout makes the menus easy to access and to look through, you aren’t taken aback with the amount of data.

Air Talkr

Air Talkr is an instant messaging system that uses the Adobe Air framework. While far from perfect, it has huge potential for becoming one of the best chat programs on the scene. It is able to connect to AIM, Yahoo, MSN, GTalk and ICQ. I tried GTalk and connection was quick and painless.

I wasn’t quite at peace with the way chat works. Conversation items (ie.: the specific messages) are contained inside huge blocks, which look good, but take up way too much space, the padding is too much. It also bothers me a bit that the app has no icon, making the taskbar entry pretty ugly.

My initial negative reactions were instantly transformed when I had a look at the bottom menu. Air Talk has a built in interface to manage your Flickr photos and view Youtube videos! I didn’t try the Flickr part, but the Youtube viewer is great. You can search for vids and view any one of them, it will open it in a new window. I couldn’t use the seeker slider, but apart from that everything worked perfectly.

Another great feature is the Air Card, a sort of Air Talkr business card. Another attentive feature is that when you add your blog, your Air Card will show the last three entries. You can also add your Twitter profile, Facebook profile and a few others.

Overall, this is another awesome application, if they put some more work into it, it could really become my messenger of choice.

Get Adobe Air from the Adobe website
Google Analytics Suite from AboutNico.be
Air Talkr from Airtalkr.com
Register on Pownce to gain access to the Pownce Air application