Adobe Rolls Out AIR 2, Flash Player 10.1

AIR 2 is finally here.

Thursday afternoon, Adobe (ADBE) quietly rolled out the latest update of its cross-platform runtime environment, one the company touts as the most significant since its original release two years ago. Using AIR 2, developers can build standalone applications for the desktop from Flash, Flex, HTML and AJAX for devices running a variety of operating systems: Windows, Mac, Linux and soon, Android.

Also given a final release today: Flash Player 10.1, which boasts some much needed H.264 hardware acceleration–just not for Macs.