Some initial thoughts on “Apollo”
I was far too sleepy when Apollo was introduced at MAX to really grasp what they were showing me. It looked cool but I heard ‘webkit’ and I thought web browser. Then I noticed the TUAW coverage of Apollo and realized how wrong I was. But now I am left wondering a few things like what is the difference between the web browser as the platform and Apollo?
According the FAQ:
What is Apollo?
Apollo is the code name for a cross-operating system runtime being developed by Adobe that allows developers to leverage their existing web development skills (Flash, Flex, HTML, JavaScript, Ajax) to build and deploy Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) to the desktop.
This really does beg the question: why? If you keep reading the FAQ you come across this…
Is Apollo a web browser?
No. Apollo is a cross-operating system runtime that runs outside of the browser.
Theoretically you could build a web browser on top of Apollo.
So the skeptic in me says that is what a web browser does. If gives developers a cross platform environment to deploy Rich Internet Applications (RIA). Although a web browser doesn’t give you the ability to package itself up and send it to someone and just work. But is that expecting a decent size change in people’s web browser centric thinking? I think so. There are advantages with regards to offline use an CD-ROM or Kiosk applications which I am guessing is a decent size audience (thinking distance education, part-time students, etc at UW). It could even enable you to create a custom podcast/vodcast reader for your school and thus take care of copyright/security concerns, just distribute it in house and autheticate with your internal system to install.
The talk at MAX was that Apollo would change a lot of things on the web, and it might if people create a web browser on top of it, but it really is just another tool you can try and use. Will people use it? Time will tell I guess. I think it is cool but like Flex I just don’t see a practical application in my everyday web work. Web apps can do the same thing, just not in as cool a way. I wonder if I will change my mind in the next few months?
Time is up, MAX 2006 is a wrap
Well after last night’s party at the Palms I was shocked that anyone made it to the sneak peak this morning… that is dedication indeed. The highlight of day 3 was the sneak peaks that was nicely live blogged by Jen de Haan. Besides that there were sessions and a lot of smirks and nods as everyone bonded over the Palms. You can see in the MAX 2006 Flickr group that a lot of fun is had at MAX… mixing learning with fun is always a good thing.
I did finally meet Mike Potter who promises that Adobe is going to focus a little more attention to Waterloo. There is a Flex demo on campus next week.
I will need to think a bit more about this years MAX before I write a summary. It was a bit odd for a MAX, Adobe certainly did some things differently (like where is the schwag?)… Overall though I finally got to meet some people that I have missed over the years and putting faces to email is always a good thing. I do think that the stuff we saw this year at MAX will change the web and make a lot of people happy—like how last years progressive downloading in Flash 8 for video enabled Youtube’s much loved simplicity.
An evening of rest and then a day of travel tomorrow. Should have a summary next week sometime 
Half time report from MAX 2006: Mobile, Flash, AJAX, Video, Integration
So far MAX 2006 has been pretty much what you would have expected from the new Adobe. Although yesterday the introduction of Apollo was pretty darn impressive as are some of the implications. What is Apollo you ask? I am still not sure. It seems like the kitchen sink of rich internet applications but time will tell. Keynote day one coverage and keynote day two coverage is better than anything I could type
What am I getting from MAX? Well Flash, mobile phones, and video are the source of a lot of really cool ideas. This morning’s keynote was all about making money creating Flash Mobile 2.1 applications for cell phones. I can see how, but it must be hard for developers to build and test their applications in the phones common in Europe and Asia but not so much here. George Fox brought my attention to the new mobile section of DevNet, it is worth a look if you want to know more. I am sure Flash mobile development would be dead easy for some students around here.
AJAX has been another hot topic as well with the Dreamweaver team being asked about it at the birds of a feather last night and again today at a presentation on Spry. They used this persona of a front end developer that looks interesting and probably true a year ago but I think front end developers know a lot more about JavaScript and AJAX then they assume now. I could be wrong… anyway, the Spry demo was cool.
Scott mentions a few things about tomorrow’s keynote but what I like most of all is that Flex 2 for OS X is available. If I had time to play with it, that would be nice but it’s off to another session for me!
Adobe MAX 2006: travel day, why am I going?
Just about packed and ready to go. I will arrive in Las Vegas at around 10:30pm local time. This will be my third MAX in a row and my expectations are pretty high this year. With the merger in the past I am really interested to see what tools and tricks the software teams have up their sleaves. Given I work in an office that does both print and web publications/applications (natural fit really) I really would like to see how the print friendly Adobe stuff is going to work with the web focused Macromedia stuff. Hopefully I will leave MAX with a good idea of what CS3 might mean for my office.
Sure professional development is great and that is 99% of the reason why I am going, but there is something I should keep in mind while I am there. I go there as staff member of University of Waterloo which means I go there ready to introduce people to our campus every chance I get. Why? Well who knows who might be looking for a Co-op student to work for them or a place they could sponsor some research. Maybe run into an Alumni or two. Its not like I am going there to sell anything to make those relationships (it isn’t my job now is it?) but I will talk up the campus any chance I get that is appropriate.
Every time someone from UW (student, staff, faculty) goes someplace they leave an impression on people as to what UW is like. UW and the region is a great place full of great people. That is something that is on my mind as I get on a plane for what promises to be a great week in the desert
IE 7 is out
No more RC status, IE 7 appears to be out and ready to go. The release notes have a bit of information for those that were testing it or looking to see what happens when you upgrade. Check out the post on the IE team blog as well. Not sure when it hits the Windows update and I am not booting over to Windows to find out
This is good for the CSS/HTML folks although I imagine a lot of headaches testing as the switchover goes on. UW pages have a print issue with conditional comments hiding a call for CSS because IE 5.5 was picking up the print CSS. I honestly can’t remember the exact problem but it was two years ago… The fix is simple, remove the conditional comment and make that your standard print.css call.