Is Apollo Really Important?
There has been a lot of talk in the ColdFusion world about Apollo lately, Adobe's entry into the desktop software world. I think it's cool because it reportedly lets any web developer write desktop applications using their existing skills.
The Adobe Labs site says this, "Apollo is targeted at making it easy to develop and deploy Rich Internet Applications to the desktop." But why should I be excited about that? I think there will definitely be some good uses for it, but Adobe is spinning this as the greatest invention since the PC, and I just don't see it that way. I have spent a LOT of effort and time trying to convince people that web based apps are important and adequate for most people's needs, and now I'm supposed to start focusing the other direction?
Again, I do think that Apollo will be good for some cases, especially where a desktop application makes more sense than putting it in the browser. However, there are already a LOT of mature development environments for the desktop that can easily interact with the Internet, so I'm not sure how well Apollo will catch on. Sure, all the fanatics that love to play with all the new software that comes out of Adobe labs will jump all over this. But I think Adobe is going to have a tough sell when it comes to all the Java and .net developers out there. Not to mention all the web developers that are perfectly happy developing in the browser.
But, I could be wrong about this. I'd be happy to hear your arguments to the contrary.
Jake Munson
34 Yrs old
Adobe is spinning this as the greatest invention since the PC
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Do you have a link for that reference? While we are excited about it, we are also in the early stages, and trying to be pretty straight forward about it.
Also, we dont expect that all web apps will, or will need to move to the desktop. If you are deploying web apps to the browser, and not running into any limitations of being in the browser, then Apollo may not make sense for you.
However, if you want to get away from some of the limitations of being in the browser (browser sandbox, limited integration with desktop, conflicting UIs), then Apollo might be something you will be interested in. We also expect that in a lot of cases, developers will be interested in having both browser, and desktop based presence, with the desktop based version offering more functionality and a better overall application experience (of course, you can leverage the same code and assets between the two).
mike chambers
mesh@adobe.com
The 'greatest since the PC' was not a direct quote, it just my characterization of Adobe's attitude towards this. But here's a quote from a site that I think is similar to what I'm talking about: "It's only a matter of time... we are going to see an explosion of creativity in the RIA Desktop space, just imagine the possibilities!"
Like I said in my entry, I don't really see anything new with Apollo, and I don't think we'll see an 'explosion'. But I could be wrong. Why hasn't Mozilla's XUL taken off? I have seen a few desktop apps based on Gecko, but there hasn't been anything near an explosion.
Flex (which, I believe, will be used to build Apollo apps) is very easy to use and learn. I think the ease of use, and relatively inexpensive authoring tools will help generate more interest in Apollo.
If you think of it in terms of an app that has both web-based components and desktop components, being able to leverage a single set of UI technologies means a more consistent user experience, not to mention a more flexible code base, where parts can be developed to serve a dual web/desktop role as needed. XUL can't really straddle that fence.
I have several use cases for this for apps I am working on right now, where it would be great to have some piece of it be able to function as a local desktop app in situations where a network connection may not be possible or practical.