Apollo Reaction from Engage

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I’m sitting in the Engage keynote by Kevin Lynch and when he started talking about Apollo, the questions from the audience really started ramping up. It’s very interesting to see people like Ben Galbraith from Ajaxian ask about being able to access native code in Apollo or Ryan Carson asking about the business opportunities.

A few things jumped out at me. No one is really sure what Apollo is going to bring. I think everyone gets the “web on the desktop” thing, but there’s some confusion about what that’s actually going to mean. Clearly that’s just going to take time, but I hope we see more killer apps that showcase exactly why the web on the desktop is a good thing. Security also seems to be a concern, but not as much as I would have thought. Ben seemed disappointed with the fact that Apollo won’t be able to talk to native applications. David Berlind, my colleague at ZDNet asked about how data is stored with Apollo, and it looks like we’re still far away from a database model. Right now it’s looking like XML storage and some semi-advanced caching. Robert asked about what the story is against Microsoft and how productive developers can be with Apollo versus .NET. It was an interesting question and Kevin reiterated that Adobe is a web-centric company. As the web evolves, so will Adobe. That’s a good place to be.

Update: Kevin just gave us a timeline. 1st half of this year: Apollo public labs release, Flex “Moxie” (I think this is Flex 3) public labs release, CS3. Second half: Apollo 1.0, Flex “Moxie”, “Phillo” 1.0 (Internet TV), Flash Media Server
[tags]Apollo, Engage, Adobe[/tags]

Related posts:

  1. Heading out to Engage
  2. Apollo is All Over (the place)
  3. Adobe’s DEMO Page (With a Video of the Apollo Presentation)
  4. The Best Apollo Information Out There
  5. Apollo bits being given to Apollo Camp Attendees?
  • http://polygeek.com oz

    I’m not really disappointed that there is no database model for data storage. I was expecting to use XML. I know there are exceptions but I would guess that most applications would benefit from using XML to store settings. Plus it’s easier for the user to move their settings around. I would love it if more apps gave me the ability to load an XML file that contained all my settings. That way when I’m at another computer I can take more of my workspace with me.

    I’m sure that security is a major concern but in the end this is an application. And applications can do nasty things. It would be trivial to write an Apollo app that when run would start deleting files from a person’s computer or any other nefarious activity. You can’t trust Apollo. You have to trust the source. It’s no different than any other application today.

  • http://www.toddfraser.ca Todd Fraser

    Wow, with all this plus Leopard, I’m going to have lots and lots to play with.

    Does anyone think that Flex 3 came really quickly? I’ve barely scratched the surface of 2. Hard to keep up? Maybe not for those who are working knee-deep in Flex full-time.

    Do we have any more info on “Phillo”? It sounds interesting :)

  • http://www.xe-media.ch andy k.

    Sounds great …but where is Adobe Flash 9 “Blaze” ???
    Or is Flash 9 = Flex “Moxie” ???

  • http://blog.digitalbackcountry.com Ryan Stewart

    Todd, I blogged a bit about Philo on ZDNet, so you might search for that post. Not a ton of info, but maybe it will help.

    Andy, Flash 9 should ship with CS3, so early this year.

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  • http://weblogs.macromedia.com/jd John Dowdell

    Todd, the Flex 2 cycle was a revamp of the architecture, but Flex 3 is an expansion upon the new framework. The feedback cycle is opening very early this cycle too. More:
    http://www.onflex.org/ted/2007/01/flex-3-in-2007-plus-some-clarity.php
    http://weblogs.macromedia.com/jd/archives/2007/01/mendels_on_flex_1.cfm

    jd/adobe

  • http://www.educnews.com/ Tommy

    I don’t like new software. Not because I’m conservative. I have to learn new features, find new bugs, pass them through. Because I’m lazy. That’s why

  • http://www.remotesynthesis.com/blog Brian Rinaldi

    As someone who is really interested in Apollo conceptually, I am a little unsure at this point what it brings to the table beyond packaging the install and perhaps some additional file system capabilities. I mean, to me, the data storage and OS/application integration possibilities were the two things that would make occasionally-connected applications on the desktop worthwhile. I mean you can access a flash movie offline already, so I am still unclear what the big differentiator is yet?

    Please, this is not criticism, just curiosity…I love Flex 2 and want this concept to be a success.

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  • http://thefalken.livejournal.com Tom Chiverton

    “Apollo won’t be able to talk to native applications”
    What, no DLL calls *or* executable launching ?

  • http://blog.digitalbackcountry.com Ryan Stewart

    Hey Tom, no, I think executable launching is allowed. And from what I understand, it’s all still up for debate, so who knows what the final version will look like.

  • http://www.abdulqabiz.com/blog/ Abdul Qabiz

    @oz, Brian – Please check this out to know what would be in Apollo (if not in first release but at some point).

    http://www.abdulqabiz.com/files/Adobe_Engage_Kevin_Lynch.mm.html

    Please look at Apollo FAQs

    http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Apollo:developerfaq#What_are_some_of_the_APIs_that_Apollo_will_expose_to_developers.3F

    It talks about File I/O and many other features. As far as, I understand you can read/write XML with File I/O.

    Hope that makes you smile :)

    -abdul

  • http://polyGeek.com oz

    @Abdul – BIG SMILE. Thanks. I was hoping for some node towards P2P in Apollo. Glad to see that there. Now lets see what’s in 1.0. I can’t wait.

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  • http://www.5izf.com/index.htm 北京租房

    2008 beijing!

  • http://gizlikamera.ws gizli kamera

    Apollo, while it’s interesting, isn’t really cross platform as it leaves out Apple machines that don’t run on Intel, Unix and Linux.

  • http://christmas-shopping-sites.blogspot.com/ david

    Interesting info
    Thanks for article

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