Adobe CS5 is out today. Time for the CS dev team to party, take a Spring vacation, and then get to work rewriting the codebase so that they can release CS6 as a suite of AIR applications. Actually, it wouldn’t take a rewrite of the codebase – assuming I have a clue what I’m talking about which is a fairly large assumption. :)

Since AIR 2.0 can access native processes I’m sure the CS team has been preparing for this day by evolving the existing codebase toward a smooth transition to AIR. Much of the heavy lifting of pushing and mashing pixels around will be done with existing native processes just as they are today. AIR just makes a nice package and makes it much easier to build a consistent UI/UX across the suite.

Native Processes: Launch and communicate with native “out-of-band” processes. Bundle your own native executables, or call executables that you know are already on the machine. This feature requires that your application be installed with a native installer rather than though a .AIR file (we provide tools for building native installers). ( Read full list of what’s new with AIR 2.0 )

What would this mean?
No doubt everyone will take this as Adobe retaliating against Apple. Putting CS6 out there as a suite of AIR apps makes it a much easier task of bringing CS to Linux.

But does anyone really think that people are going to give up OSX for some flavor of Linux just because they can use the CS suite? I would expect that there would be a very small percentage of individuals who would switch. However businesses would look at this as a golden opportunity to save money. The bottom line for a business is if they can do the same work for less money then they’ll switch. Linux based computers are far, far, cheaper than Macs. Plus you get a similar OS experience. There are however ancillary costs to such a large shift such as IT support. But over time I would expect that more and more businesses would make the move.

Furthermore, the recent Apple fiasco does set a dangerous precedent. I’m sure that more than a few people have worried that Apple could go a step further and disable AIR in a future version of OSX. I have no idea if that is a realistic concern or not but at this point I wouldn’t put anything devious past Apple. However, if CS6 were an AIR app then Apple would never consider making such a move. That would be disastrous for them since such a large percentage of their users are people who rely on the Creative Suite for their income. There is absolutely no way Apple could replace CS with their own apps so users would have to choose between not ever upgrading their OS or moving to Windows or Linux machines.

Adobe is clearly the world leader behind the write-once-deploy everywhere philosophy. I expect that moving CS to AIR has been a goal since the conception of AIR. This would obviously cement AIR as a robust platform for developing and deploying apps which would encourage other software companies to make similar moves.

What do you think? I’m I way off base? Is it even possible? We’ll probably know in about 12 months when CS6 previews start coming out.

Setting up Flash Builder to create multi-touch apps is simple for those who are familiar with Eclipse. But if you are new to this platform there can be a few spots that might get sticky. That’s why I created this short video.

Obviously the first thing you need is the AIR 2 SDK and Runtime bits. The links are provided below.

• Get AIR 2.0 beta : labs.adobe.com
• Download and run the AIR 2 – Windows Runtime Installer
• Download the AIR 2 SDK
• Check out the release notes about laying the AIR 2.0 SDK on top of the Flex SDK. <- hopefully you won’t need to after watching this video

The 360|Flex conference next week in San Jose, March 7-10 is going to have a good bit of multi-touch goodness. There is a Birds of a Feather session dedicated to multi-touch along with a handful of sessions that will cover various aspects. Exciting times.

Let the multi-touching begin!

Note: Multi-touch monitor sold separately. :)

I’m feeling bold after writing my review of the previous decade so I’ll make some predictions about what’s going to happen in the coming decade.

The Last OS
Sometime around the middle of the decade Microsoft will release a new operating system. And that will be their last. I’m not saying that Microsoft will go out of business. Just that it won’t be profitable for them to create another operating system. Neal Stephenson writes in his book In The Beginning Was The Command Line:

…the very nature of operating systems is such that it is senseless for them to be developed and owned by a specific company. It’s a thankless job to begin with. Applications create possibilities for millions of credulous users, whereas OSes impose limitations on thousands of grumpy coders, and so OS-makers will forever be on the shit-list of anyone who counts for anything in the high-tech world. Applications get used by people whose big problem is understanding all of their features, whereas OSes get hacked by coders who are annoyed by their limitations.

More than likely Microsoft will evolve. They may not be the 800 pound gorilla they are today but they’ll probably be a major player in software development.

The next AOL
Ten years ago AOL was on top of the world. But it was clear to see that trouble lay ahead. Broadband Internet access was destined to grow and AOL was going to have a very difficult time tapping into that market. AOL is still around. But it’s a small time player.

So who’s going to go the way of AOL in the next ten years? My money is on every mobile phone service provider in the world: AT&T, Verizon, T-mobile, etc. There will certainly be mobile phones. You just won’t need a service provider for it. You can almost get away with that right now if you’re phone is WiFi enabled and you’re running something like Skype. You probably can’t use that combination while driving down the interstate between cities but it’s just a matter of time. WiMax will be rolling out. At first we’ll pay for it – like we used to do with WiFi – but eventually it will be free and ubiquitous. The hardware for providing mobile access is going to drop so low that many people will have the equivalent of a cellphone tower in their living room. There are technical hurdles to overcome but nothing that is a deal breaker.

Platform Ubiquity
Of course I’m biased to the Flash Platform since that’s what I do. But I don’t see anything from preventing AIR from becoming the platform of choice when developing most applications. The one possible roadblock would come if for some reason Google decided not to play nice with AIR. But I don’t see that happening. Google doesn’t make developer tools and so I don’t see any reason for them to do anything other than embrace AIR.

I wrote earlier about the AIRos. I don’t actually see AIR ever replacing any OS. Instead it will become the dominant presentation layer across devices.

The gulf will widen
One social issue that I see developing is between those who embrace the rapid changes in technology and those who don’t. It exists right now. Go to Walmart and do a poll about who uses Twitter or Facebook on a daily basis. Now do the same thing at Whole Foods. Do you think there will be a difference? Sure but it hardly matters. But it’s going to start to matter more and more. People who embrace change and technology are going to see their productivity and creativity rise. They will have access to information and to people that will give them advantages that will make a real difference in how they work and live.

What else? I don’t know. You tell me. I think we’re even going to have a general session on this topic at 360Flex in San Jose this March.

I love seeing great things done with Adobe AIR and it doesn’t get a much better than this. Citrify is a great little photo editor for the social media cellphone using world. Especially people with the iPhone and it’s shitty camera. :)

The app is targeted at users who want to quickly touch-up ugly spots in their photos, like: red eye, glare, blemishes, whiten a few teeth and maybe smooth out some wrinkles. And it handles adjusting all the basics: brightness, contrast, hue, saturation.

What’s really impressive is the work he did with effects using PixelBender. I couldn’t resist playing around and Obamifying a photo of Sarah Palin.

Currently there’s the full desktop version for $39.99 and then a free basic version plus a free Facebook version.

There’s lots of updates coming including multi-touch when AIR 2.0 is finished. If you want to keep up with the Citrify news then follow @zeeyang on Twitter.

Citrify is pretty much a one man project. So let your friends know and help spread the word about this cool app.

Below are a few before after shots of what Citrify can do now.

Why isn’t there an Adobe AIR operating system by now? Seems like all you would need is to customize one of the Linux distros to automatically run an AIR app on startup that would act as the interface to the OS. What you would end up with is a light weight OS that would be easy to develop apps for. This would be perfect for netbooks just like the Google Chrome OS.

And the pieces are really falling into place with the enhancements to AIR 2.0 and the Flash Player 10.1.

I think litl is doing something like this but my understanding is that they are using Flash lite for now.

I’m I nuts or is it just a matter of time?