Adobe AIR in Action

Preface

My friend Paul Newman (yes, that’s really his name, and no, not that Paul Newman) called me a year ago to ask if I’d like to help write a book about Apollo, which was the codename for Adobe AIR at that time. I was already overworked, but I hesitantly agreed. Although I’d known of Apollo in a general way prior to that, it was only at that point that I started to seriously take a look at the technology. Paul later had to bow out of the project due to other demands on his time, but I continued to look at Apollo and prepare to write this book.

Previously, I’d held a few prejudices in regard to Apollo. I’ve worked with Flash and Flex for a decade, and the idea of using Flash or Flex to build desktop applications was hardly a new one. I’d ...