Adobe has released AIR 1.0, the official release today. This isn't a beta build or a maybe-good-enough version, this is the final 1.0 release and it is pretty huge news. At the moment it has only been a few minutes since the release so their is still some time before all the details are available and Adobe's server is probably going to be very slow for a while.

Overview
Adobe AIR is the cross-platform desktop runtime that enables developers to leverage Flash, Flex, HTML and PDF to create a rich interactive application that can be run on both Mac and PC (Linux support soon). The AIR runtime is free to download (SDK) or you can get real usability by picking up a copy of the just released Flex 3. Today had been a huge day so far for Adobe and of course for developers like me.

Where can I get AIR?
You can download the required AIR runtime directly from Adobe's site. The Flash extension is also available from Adobe and the Flex support comes inside Flex 3. If the command-line SDK way is your flavor, then you can find that here.

What Can AIR do for Me?
Applications have been developed in AIR for a few months now because Adobe had released beta versions to allow developers to get up to speed on what AIR was to become. Some of the more notable applications would be Snitter (Twitter client from Jon Snook), Adobe Media Player, Ebay Desktop and Aviary (still in beta). You may also remember me posting about the Kanza Learning Project which I developed using AIR and Flex a few months ago.

Creating a simple AIR app
In order to create a simple AIR application you can use Flex 3, Flash CS3, Dreamweaver CS3 and command line equivalents. In future articles on Scriptplayground.com you can learn how to create simple AIR applications using each way possible, as defined previously.