I was just thinking about the promise of Java some 15 years ago or so (I forget exactly) about being the answer to cross-platform programming. For sure it’s done quite a bit of that, and also been a pain in the but at the same time.

Now fast-forward to 2007 and the development of Adobe AIR. All the AIR apps that are popping up for different web services. That you can run AIR on Mac, Windows, and Linux – and all those AIR based apps is a huge shift in not only how we use apps, but what systems we decide to run them on. Sure, Microsoft has a (very good) also-ran platform in Silverlight, but do you think that’ll end up on the Mac, let alone Linux?

It allows us to forget about what our favorite operating system is and focus on running the system that is relevant to what we’re trying to accomplish. What’s your thoughts on this? Have you tried any AIR apps? What ones are your favorites?