Flex & In the News 25 Aug 2006 10:25 am
What can Apollo learn from Java
Ryan Stewart was blogging about how Apollo is going to change the internet application paradigm. It reminded me of the same promise made by the Java Web Start technology. The Java camp has been trying to push web application to the desktop for years with Java Web Start. Unfortunately, Web Start was plagued with poor performance and instability in the first few releases, making it unattractive to the developers. The biggest roadblock for Web Start was the fact that Sun was having a hard time getting the public to upgrade to the latest Java runtime environment. The 20mb installer and a confusing download page have proven to be too much for the casual computer users.
Do all these remind you of anything? That’s right, the Java applet technology. Java applet was the first serious attempt at rich internet application – a concept way ahead of its time, but it was hindered by the same problems. If you ask any developer familiar with Java, he or she would tell you that applet is too slow and most people don’t know how to install the JRE. Fast forward to the present, Flex is really just another attempt at the original Java applet vision. Unlike the Java applet, the Flash platform enjoys a tremendous install base and it’s very easy to upgrade to the latest version. Flex also loads faster and looks way better than its ugly cousin. It’s no wonder the Flex Builder 2 is just flying off the shelf as soon as it’s released.
Looking into the future, the Apollo shares a common vision with Java Web Start, but can Apollo overcome the challenges plaguing its predecessors? Looking at what Flex has done for rich internet applications, one can’t help being a little optimistic. Hopefully, the Apollo team can learn from the Java Web Start’s mistakes and finally capture the market.
Need to bring your Flex project up to speed? Zee Yang is a freelance Flex developer with deep understanding of architecture and user experience. You can reach him at zee.yang@gmail.com.
on 26 Aug 2006 at 6:48 pm 1.Mike said …
It is an exciting time I agree. But I see RIA as a category which describes highly interactive, zero-install browser based applications and is usually based on Ajax and Flash. As it turns out, Ajax is the only RIA technology that does not require an install (browser plug-in). Flex requires Flash which is in stalled in over 90% of all browsers. Unfortunately, Flex 2 requires an updated Flash engine, which severely defeats the purpose of using browser technology which doesn’t require a download.
on 17 Sep 2006 at 12:28 am 2.Chris said …
I don’t believe adobe is going to have so much of a problem convincing users to upgrade to the next version. The flash player upgrade path statistics on Adobe’s site show that each version of flash adopts faster than its predecessor. So not only are people willing to upgrade, but with each subsequent flash version they upgrade faster than they did before. So Adobe will not have much of an issue getting the apollo client on user’s desktops. They already have PDF reader on everyone’s desktop, just leverage that and let users know that you are combining the flash player with it as an “update”, and you get Apollo on everyone’s desktop. As an aside thats all apollo really is, a local flash player, combined with pdf, an html/JS engine and file system API like Zinc.
But the real point of Apollo is to succeed where the browser failed. The main problem with Java is that it ran through the browser for the most part, and browsers have failed to deliver us a consistent user experience across all of our various devices/machines. Thats the ultimate flaw of Ajax and the main reason why Adobe realized they have to get out of the browser. Mozilla/IE/Opera and Safari will never work well together and there will always be hurdles to delivering a consitent experience through all of them. So if Adobe successfully sidesteps that all of this undue hype about Ajax and the windows presentation foundation or whatever will finally die. That is where Apollo needs to focus in order to win. Can they deliver a consistent experience?
on 10 Dec 2007 at 2:04 pm 3.asiavtour said …
http://www.asiavtour.com asiavtour