I’ve been spending time since the Apollo alpha was released on labs looking at the apps now possible with a runtime such as Apollo and tools such as Flex and Webkit (the HTML rendering engine available within Apollo).  From what I can see, there is now not such a clear line between the traditional desktop and that of a web application - which can only be a good thing.  The less differentiation there is between the two from a user point of view the better.  Users are used to the desktop, the majority have been using it for years.

However,

I have a concern, and I’m not sure there is any real way around it.  I shall call this concern the “splash page” effect.  This is based around the effect that for every decent developer there is a monkey out there somewhere who thinks tools such as Flash are brilliant.  So brilliant, in fact, that he can now put 200K loading movies on to his companies website with some cool animation and maybe some nice musak in the background.

Now, I’m sure you know who I mean, and I’m also sure that all these guys are find their way into Apollo and think about all the cool things they can do with it.  For instance, imagine a version of the internet where not only is there a load of cracking Apollo web applications doing what Apollo and RIA’s do well, but also a stack of websites largely replaced with Apollo wrapped websites….

Now, I kinda like the web, I like the fact that I can go to a website, and find out what I need to know, and then I can move on.  Should I need more information, I can always revisit the site.  Now imagine an Apollo version of this for the task of finding a mortgage.  Can you imagine going to say fifteen mortgage lenders sites, downloading fifteen apollo apps, and then using them to find out that it’s not what you want only to have to uninstall them.

So what does this have to do with Apollo and the splash page guys?  Well, I beleive that Apollo is fit for one purpose, i.e. creating genuinely useful applications that the users will use over and over in the same way they use their desktop applications - not for one use apps like mortgage sales tools etc etc.  To be honest, I can see the splash page guys knocking out Apollo apps left, right and centre for all sorts of things - even wrapping their existing sites in Apollo for the cool factor.

So, what can Adobe do about it?  Well, as far as I can see, there is one way of getting round this and thats by providing Apollo with some kind of run-without-install method for the app’s .air’s.  How would this help?  Well, if the user has the option of running the app without install - then their machine won’t become with a bunch of Apollo apps that they don’t use anymore.

Anyone else have any similar thoughts?