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.
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March 19th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
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.
March 19th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
Wow - this is interesting and something to look into. I wonder what it adds that good programming itself can address…
March 19th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
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 
March 19th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
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.
March 19th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
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.
March 19th, 2007 at 8:28 pm
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.
March 22nd, 2007 at 11:24 am
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