Adobe on Monday released its Air Technology previously known as Apollo, for creating cross-platform hybrid Web & desktop applications.

The AIR runtime lets developers run applications on the desktop that they’ve built for the Web using standard Web languages like HTML, AJAX, and Flash. AIR is available for Windows and Mac OS now, with Linux to follow. Adobe also announced several AIR-based applications. Most notable among these for consumers are eBay Desktop, which allows eBay buyers and sellers to keep track of their auctions and get notified of activity; and AOL’s Xdrive Desktop Lite, an installed interface for accessing online-stored files without a browser.

“This is a major step forward for the Adobe RIA technology platform,” said Phil Costa, Adobe’s Director of Product Management for the Platform Business Unit, in an interview with PC Magazine last Friday. “We have been investing in rich Internet application technology for many, many years, but it’s really in the last 18 months that the market demand has recognized its value to improving the user experience.”

Top 5 Adobe Air Applications

1. Snitter for Air
   Snitter is “Snook’s Twitter”: an Adobe AIR-powered application for twittering. Twitter let’s you post small 140 character messages letting people know what you’re up to.
   http://snook.ca/snitter/
2. Digg Top Adobe Air
   DiggTop is an application for Windows and MacOSX that lets you view a blended list of your favourite Digg topic or keyword feeds. In addition to the full Digg submission information, it will also display a slideshow of images it can scrape from the linked articles
   http://www.gskinner.com/DiggTop/
3. AOL Top 100 videos Adobe Air
   Download the latest desktop widget from AOL Music featuring the top 100 hottest music videos, related artist videos and special features. This widget is available for free and currently works on both MAC and PC computers.
   http://music.aol.com/help/syndication/desktop-widgets
4. Google Analytics on Adobe AIR:
   This application helps you track your site traffic from the desktop. Currently it does not provide all the information and reports Google Analytics shows but does a good job of showing pretty basic ones.
   http://www.aboutnico.be/index.php/analytics-widget/
5. Flickr Dump on Adobe Air:
   (Flickr dump) is an AIR application that allows you to download all the public images from a Flickr Account to your desktop. Quite useful when you want to quickly download all the shared photos from your friends and save it to your desktop.
   http://onair.adobe.com/blogs/tour/2007/08/09/new-air-app-flump-flickr-dump/