There has been a lot of excitement, interest and discussion around Apollo, especially since we released the public alpha on labs last week. One thing that has come up a couple of times, is confusion over what Apollo is as well as what value it provides. A lot of the discussion has focused on uncertainty about why would you want to move web applications outside of the browser.
A lot of times when this question gets answered, the answer focuses on specific Apollo features (file I/O API, working offline). While these are things that Apollo can do today, that are difficult if not impossible to do consistently in the browser, a feature based discussion doesn’t address the fundamental question of why would you want to move applications out of the browser.
I had been planning to write up my thoughts on this, and realized that I already had as part of the Apollo Pocket Guide for Flex Developers. Below is chapter one from that book, which explains what Apollo is, and what problems it is trying to solve. (You can download the entire book from here).
Note that the excerpt does contain a discussion of features, but one of the primary advantages of Apollo, which isn’t a specific feature, is that it allows applications to run outside of the browser. This is not a ding on browsers, or web technologies, and as I point out, the browser has some strong advantages that often outweigh its disadvantages.
Ultimately though, because browser based and Apollo based applications are built using the same technologies, it is possible to deploy to both platforms, taking advantages of the strengths of each. Because of this, Apollo applications compliment web applications. They do not replace them.
Continue reading…
