14 DAY TRIAL // Adobe is betting hard on its AIR platform and despite being far less popular than some of Adobe's other technologies, certainly nothing like Flash, it is beginning to see more traction as it's becoming more popular with developers. And now developers and users have something to look forward to with AIR 2.0 that promises to bring some big new features like multitouch support, which is all the rage right now, but also a lot of improvements under the hood making for lighter loads on the processor and the memory footprint.
The company has come out with an extensive list covering most of the planned changes, improvements and new features, and several of them stand out. First and foremost, multitouch and gesture support. Multitouch is really hot right now with Apple supporting it on the hardware level almost across the board but especially because Windows 7, which touts multitouch as one of its most interesting features, has come out. Adobe AIR already offers multitouch support for Mac but the new version will also implement the feature on Windows.
Related to multitouch, AIR 2.0 also ads support for gestures like two-finger tap, press and tap, pan, rotate, swipe and zoom on both Windows and Mac. The features are great for portable devices, but have proven less useful and more gimmicky on desktops and even laptops. Still, as more hardware makers integrate the features, usability should improve.
Another feature that could prove interesting is Local Audio Recording. The changes continue under the hood and developers will be able to take advantage of several new features related to cross-platform compatibility but also improved networking support. Users though will be much more interested in the performance improvements AIR 2.0 promises. Many have complained about the amount of memory AIR apps gobble up and Adobe claims that the new version will be a lot more frugal. It remains to be seen whether Adobe will be able to make good on these claims; if it does, it could help AIR apps become a lot more popular.