Adobe Apollo is in alpha
by Kevin Dangoor
Though there are some people who are concerned about handing over a monopoly to Adobe (which is a fair concern), Adobe Apollo is now out in alpha and is certainly technology to watch. It’s a system for creating cross-platform desktop apps using webesque technologies (HTML/JavaScript/CSS/Flash). Unfortunately, cross-platform at this time only means Windows and Mac, though Apollo could undoubtedly be brought to Linux if the demand is there.
I heard a rumor at one point that Adobe is considering bundling in sqlite, which I think would be killer. Looking at the FAQ, it would appear that sqlite is still on the table but is not in this release. It seems like having sqlite as a local data store is a no brainer… having to come up with your own formats for all offline data you want to store seems like a drag. At least, it would be for any moderately sizeable amount of data.
Well, at FOWA I heard from an Adobe guy that Linux support is coming. Obviously I have no way to check the veracity of that statement, but it would certainly be cool if it happened.
Wow – this is interesting and something to look into. I wonder what it adds that good programming itself can address…
I just downloaded and tried: Never seen such a slow feedreader application before, even the progress indicator is stuck
! The Google maps stuff is much slower than the website, it’s simply pointless. Java is running circles around this technology. Adobe has got a LOT of work to do, if they want this to find it’s market share. They should at least add some nice eye candy to their demo apps 
It *is* alpha, but I’m surprised to hear that it’s slow. I haven’t tried it yet. Adobe has a speedy VM for ActionScript/JavaScript, partly due to the optional static typing.
I’m curious to see other reviews as people try it.
Don’t forget apollo killed python … somewhere along the way
[from wikipedia]: In Greek mythology Python was the earth-dragon of Delphi, always represented in the vase-paintings and by sculptors as a serpent. Pytho was the chthonic enemy of Apollo, who slew her and remade her former home his own oracle, the most famous in Classical Greece.
Sorry, I need to correct this: The slow speed I expereinced was possibly a network problem. I tried again, and the performance was good this time. To be fair I also must admit, that the apps start faster than a java webstart app, which is nice.
For anyone interested and concerned with Apollo development a new forum has been launched just for the community, take a look and join in on this new technology–be one of the first to soak it up:
http://www.codeapollo.com