Adobe has released a beta version of
Flash Player 11 and
AIR 3. The AIR release is of limited interest since as yet there is no public SDK; Adobe mainly wants to test compatibility. That said, the
announcement describes a key new feature, the ability to package AIR applications as standalone executables on Windows, Mac and Android. You can already do this on Apple iOS, a feature that was forced on Adobe by Apple’s refusal to allow application runtimes on iOS – unless they are WebKit or
FileMaker. This is new for the other platforms though, and I assume comes as a result of the popularity of the iOS packager. The effect is that you no longer have to advertise the fact that your app runs on AIR or require users to obtain the runtime; your app will just work.
Adobe may have its eye on the Mac App Store, which will disallow applications that require a runtime. Extending the AIR packager to desktop OS X should get around that limitation.