Apollo is the next killer application signed by Adobe. I'm pretty sure about that.
At MAX Keynote session Kevin Lynch and Ed Rowe, leads the engineering team for Apollo, showed us the power of Apollo technologies.
I took some photos but there's one that makes me, as developer, think on a new generation of applications that Apollo will permit to develop.
Kevin Rowe showed us the Google Maps web application embedded into an Apollo container :
Apollo will open the frontier to run complex web applications using web technologies such as HTML, Javascript and AJAX on your desktop.
The next question is :
What if Apollo will reach the same penetration rate the Flash Player reached (more than 97%) ?
Maybe we'll never open the browser again :)
If it uses internaly ie activex or gecko engine, it still is a browser, and this is sad, a browser shell with some added persitance features.
If not, if Apollo is really a new platform of applications, if it is like XUL of firefox or XAML, and if it is really cross platform and cross platform means not only win & mac but also lin, bsd and other os (true cross platform like java is), if it is engine is AS based not necesary XML or "MXML", if you can do 3D animations like when using WinFX, but also keep the cross-platformness, then, if it supports everything that the fp has until now (video and audio + advanced vector graphics), if we can create lower level plugins for it like we do it with different flash projector tools, THEN WE CAN THINK that the browser will mayber never be opend again.
Posted by: ion gion | October 25, 2006 at 07:35 AM
The engine used is WebKit. And does some interesting things. In some of the other Apollo sessions they show the power behind Apollo, as they take the rendered output of WebKit and pull it into Flash. This means the HTML content is capable of being fully control by Flash 8 filters. The example in the session was making a browser in Apollo that allowed you to take the current HTML page and rotate it and scroll in the rotated position. Apollo is sweet!
Posted by: Renaun Erickson | October 25, 2006 at 09:10 AM
As they take the rendered output of WebKit and pull it into Flash. This means the HTML content is capable of being fully control by Flash 8 filters.
http://zzui.info/sitemap.htm
Posted by: Calo Bob | October 25, 2006 at 11:39 AM
Whats the difference between this an the enormous failure that was Central ??????
Posted by: pete | October 25, 2006 at 02:06 PM
Central was a platform on it's own but Apollo opens it up even more. To run a custom app using Central you first had to have central open, then load your desired app. Once you install Apollo your apps are just like any other app on your computer. You have an icon for it, you can place it in your start menu, and it even adds an entry for itself within the Add/Remove Programs list.
Did Central have I/O capability? Apollo does (amongst other benefits).
Think of Central as a little testing ground for what Apollo could/is becoming.
Posted by: Steven | October 25, 2006 at 08:09 PM
For what it's worth, the ShockMachine project towards 1996 was an even earlier Macromedia attempt at easy distribution of your content beyond the browser.
It's a new type of endeavor... the first analogy I think of is this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_automobile
Posted by: John Dowdell | October 26, 2006 at 02:26 AM
I prefer to think about Central not as a failure but as a test.
The ShockMachine wow, john... how memories !!
Posted by: Marco Casario | October 26, 2006 at 03:03 AM