MyMovieMatch from Matchmine is a 'media discovery platform'. What exactly does that mean? They will port together information it generates from you and will spit out some recommendations based on your personal tastes.
MyMovieMatch basically helps match up movies when you just cant decide. It gets to know people's likes and dislikes, then scowers its shelves to find the best movie, video or music option for them. It's another one of those AIR applications that was built using Flex 2. So you are required to install Apollo to run this sucker as it is the glue that holds your desktop and web together in order for the app to work properly. The process is started off by training the application as to what types of content the user likes. This is then exported as a MatchKey, which is a 'sophisticated mathematical representation of your personal interests' file to your desktop.
It's a neat idea, but strikes us as a little to complex for a movie picking application. It does get the job done if you want to spend a little time with it, however. Is it really necessary? It could be if you just don't have the time to stop by your local video store and ask an employee for a recommendation.
Could developers be moving towards Linux and handhelds? A new study says they are! Evans Data has published a study that found that Windows developers are dropping slowly, with 65% of software being written for Windows this year compared with 75% last year. The shift began two years ago, and seems to be drastically increasing.
Why this change? Web browsers are becoming capable of running advanced applications both on and offline, making desktop operating systems seem less important.
What are your thoughts, should developers keep their focus on browser/web based applications like Apollo, and forget about developing for multi operating systems?
Recently Aptana added support for Adobe AIR (the platform formally known as Apollo) to their Open Source IDE. Why is this cool? Well Aptana is a standalone web/JavaScript development application that is built on top of Eclipse. Best of all, Aptana is free. This is a great alternative to locking yourself into Adobe's Dreamweaver or Flex builder plugins.
You can download Aptana here. Once you have it installed, open it up and look at the Aptana start page under Plugins. Here you will be able to walk through the process of downloading and installing the Adobe Air Runtime, SDK, and the Aptana Plugin.
Once everything is setup simply go to File > New > Project and select Adobe Air. Fill in the project name and description and then import your preferred Ajax Libraries to start coding with. There is a host to libraries to choose from including YUI, jQuery, and ProtoType.
The pre-created project includes all of the Javascript needed to start writing your application. The AIRAliases.js file maps all of the local OS and file system functions to JavaScript so that you can, within AIR, make calls directly to the users computer. I recommend trying out the sample text-file editor application from the Adobe's QuickStart page to get a sense of how easy it is to build AIR applications and what is possible using this new framework.
Once you have your code ready to test, just hit the green "Play" button and Aptana will compile your app and launch it within Adobe AIR
It was known that Kevin Rose of Digg fame has been working with a small team on something to do with instant messaging for a little while now. Well, the kittie kat jumped, or should I say Pownced out of the bag on Tuesday night.
Pownce is a way to send anything from messages, files, links and events to friends online. It runs care of Adobe's Apollo runtime platform, taking advantage of its many benefits like building one application for Mac, PC and Linux operating systems, and Amazons S3 file storage. So in order to use it, AIR must be downloaded and installed first.
First thing you do to get started with Pownce is to create a network of friends that you want to share items with, then you can choose whether to send it to the whole list, or specific people. Basically, whoever you want to read or see you item, will be able to. It's free, and ad supported.
Pownce is still in an invite only mode so the system can be monitored and scaled accordingly. Users who want to get in on this application can sign up on the Pownce website. Look out for a full review on DownloadSquad when we are lucky enough to score an invite.
As we reported earlier today, switching gears from alpha into beta, Adobe has revealed Apollo's true name, AIR. Short for Adobe Integrated Runtime, the framework remains largely the same but gains some new functionality under the hood. Expect to find embedded SQLite support, WebKit HTML rendering, drag & drop support, support for PDF and general improvements to window management and networking.
So what's in it for users? Sure, its got some great functionality geared towards web developers, but what's the use unless there are some real useful applications for AIR? I did some digging around and have found 3 AIR apps that I think have some usefulness, and show some promise for AIR. If anything, by the end of this article you'll get tired of reading the acronym AIR.
Salsa - A simple Amazon S3 client Salsa is a super simple client to copy files between Amazon S3 and your computer. It's just a simple uploading and downloading interface, that's all. Amazon S3 has been called a cost-effective backup solution, and this app could make that practical on a desktop level. Salsa is considered 'alpha' quality, but if I needed a simple, secure method for backing up files I can see its value. Salsa is available on the Adobe Labs AIR:Applications:Samples wiki page. It would be great to see this little app mature a bit and move beyond the lab.
Tweetr - Twitter client Yeah, we love Twitter around here at DLS, it's a little shameless. There's no shortage of ways to go about tweeting, and Tweetr is a nicely done implementation in AIR. The interface reminds me of a little bit iChat, a little bit Twitterrific. While not perfect, it's lightweight and does a fine job. I like how you can view your replies and direct messages as well. Check it out at http://www.tweet-r.com.
Fresh - RSS feed reader Another one straight outta Adobe Labs is Fresh, a straightforward feed reader app. What I like about Fresh is that it's pretty full featured for only being a sample: OPML import/export, tabbed interface, integrated web view for stories, themes and more. Obviously an application like this isn't very innovative or groundbreaking, but it's a good demonstration of AIR's abilities: structured content, feed retrieval, ui elements, and HTML rendering. Check it out on the Adobe Labs AIR:Applications:Samples wiki page.
If you'd like to keep an eye on upcoming AIR applications, here's some good sites to keep your browser or feed reader pointed at:
A lot has been said about the upcoming Adobe Apollo environment, good and bad. Some people don't like the fact that its another installable runtime, some think its great because of the possibilities. For certain though, this cross operating system runtime is going to be sparking up some very intuitive rich internet applications for the desktop in the next little while. Apollo is scheduled for release at the end of the year, but is currently available online in a public alpha mode.
Adobe's Mike Downey took the audience through Apollo at Sunday's FITC in Toronto, and showed off some very cool in-development projects, including a desktop application that is in the works for eBay, RSS reader, and the Adobe Media Player.
Designers and Developers will have fun with this application; it's built to handle all of the standard tools and code, including support for Flash, Actionscript and HTML.
At Web 2.0 this week eBay has made its mark with the announcement of the limited beta of its new user interface: Project San Dimas. The interface has been in the works over the past year and is meant to simplify buying and selling items on eBay, allowing them to better compete with other companies like MarketWorks, Vendito, and Y Combinator.
Written as an Apollo deskop application; The program allows eBay users to watch multiple items on eBay easily, and work with that data by exporting stats to their desktop as an excel spreadsheet. When users are outbid on a particular item users are notified by a pop-up window, and users can do things like create item listings while offline, and take photos for their listings with their webcam that are automatically added to their listing.
The project was demoed at DEMO 07 in January. You can check out a video of San Dimas in action at that conference here.
The team from Scrapblog is hanging out at the Web 2.0 expo this week, and has some exciting news.
Scrapblog, who officially announced their availability on April 2nd, is a way for people to aggregate social media into an online scrapbook. It's a simple drag and drop way to combine photos, videos, audio and text to create really cool multimedia pages, or online scrapbooks. Material can be uploaded and embedded from Flickr, YouTube, Photobucket, Yahoo Photos, and Webshots.
With the Web 2.0 world rapidly shifting towards giving users the ability to access files and applications both online and offline, Scrapblog is going offline, and onto the desktop. They have been working hard to build a version of Scrapblog that runs on Adobe's Apollo platform which shouldn't be hard given the fact that they already employ Flash for their main interface. The release date is expected to be around two months from now, and they will be opening it up for trials with an announcement on their blog at that time.
Check out some samples of what you can do with Scrapblog.
It looks like Adobe is looking at getting a slice of the desktop media player pie, but they insist that they are playing on neutral ground. Adobe has just entered into the market with a flash based media player that is plainly not aimed at competing.
The Adobe Media Player (formerly Philo) will work both online and on the desktop without a web browser using the Flash platform. The player has a flash based video playback and includes a number of social features like tagging, rating, and sharing videos with contacts. It can be branded, tracked and monetized as well as protection for the content that is embedded.
The Media Player, of course, runs off of Adobes new Apollo rich internet application development platform that Adobe has been trying to push on users recently, and works with both Mac and PC operating systems
The launch date is scheduled for a late spring beta release, and it is rumored that 90% of major media companies are testing the Adobe Media Player.
It's a widget gadget world, so why not add a few more mini helpers on your desktop. Yourminis, who is highly known as a destination to go for widgets that can be easily added to personal websites and blogs, has entered the desktop marketplace. Are they waging some kind of war against Google Desktop sidebar and gadgets, Apple widgets, and the new Yahoo Widgets? I think they are merely providing an alternative.
Yourminis desktop is built off of the newly released Adobe Apollo platform, which could have the potential of being as popular as Flash. Whether you like it or not, Yourminis desktop widgets does require users to have the Apollo runtime installed to use the widgets. Once downloaded, the widgets work as well as they do online care of the desktop widget manager. Are they better than the offerings from Google or Yahoo? They can hold their own; if you can get past the thought of an additional runtime install. It is great however, to see another company supporting Adobe's Apollo web desktop environment, and pushing its limits.
Yourminis desktop widgets come in every shade you would expect them to, from RSS feeds, text editors, stock trackers, and weather reports. They also run on both Mac and Windows Operating systems.
Not everyone is thrilled about Adobe's Apollo, the cross platform Flash+javascript+html application environment that's supposed to turn conventional applications on their heads. Broadband Mechanics CEO and open standards guru Marc Canter says Adobe is barking up the wrong digital tree. "Why would someone want to lock themselves into a proprietary, closed platform - like Apollo?"
Canter loudly implores developers, "would someone please mention to these poor schmucks who swallow this pitch that if you're hopelessly locked into a proprieary platform - that the owner of the platform (Google, Microsoft, Adobe, MySpace) can do ANYTHING they want - at any time and discard you as fast as - well as fast as Macromedia ripped of Laszlo."
Meanwhile, most of the blog-o-sphere moons over the prospect. A rather informative but pretty dry video explaining Apollo's approach is after the jump...
Adobe's just-launched Apollo platform could be the ticket to a whole new world of applications according to TechCrunch's Michael Arrington. He writes of the announcement, "I honestly believe that entirely new classes of companies can be built on this platform, which takes Flash, HTML and javascript completely outside of the browser and interacts with the file system on a PC."
You can pick up your free (as in beer) copy of the Apollo Alpha SDK and follow Arrington's admonishment to "go build something". Adobe's stated target is "allowing web developers to build and deploy web applications to the desktop", which could help define a whole new class of network aware applications. While Apollo promises to be a cross-platform environment, although support for Linux isn't expected until sometime after the full 1.0 release; a real shame given its incredible potential.
Adobe's new offline web idea called "Apollo" aims to change the stigma of web-only content, where all the needed resources reside for development. Developers will now be able to build interactive apps on the desktop, without needing to rely on the web so much for their development needs. Adobe is expected to release many more details at their MAX developer's conference October 23-26th, so developer feedback can be incorporated into the first beta release of the product, due out possibly by the end of the year. So far they plan to incorporate the use of PDF, AJAX, Adobe Flex, and other technologies you would find in a development environment. The fledgling product will be handed to a select group of developers for testing purposes.
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