December 20th, 2007

Looking back at the years most popular posts

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 12:41 am

Categories: AIR, Adobe, Apollo, Finetune, Flash, Flex, Rich Internet Applications, Silverlight, iPhone

Tags: Apple iPhone, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Rich Internet Application, Post, Adobe Flex, E-mail, Online Communications, Ryan Stewart

Every year ZDNet sends out a list of our most popular posts. This is based purely on pageviews so it could have been a particularly witty (or deceptive) title or just something from a big news day. It’s always fun to look back and since pageviews are a good metric, hopefully I can copy these more next year. So here are my top five posts with the beauty of 20/20 hindsight.

The top 5 new features in Flash CS3 - Ahh Digg. This article was Dugg 738 times and most people just wanted some news about Flash with the CS3 release because Photoshop got all the love. Maybe when CS4 comes around I’ll be able to do a top features of the RIA-centric products.

Adobe Flex goes open source - Interestingly enough this also got Dugg and had way more Diggs at 1320 but fewer page views. This was my favorite announcement of the year because I think it helped Flex get a lot of momentum. I’m going to be touching on this tomorrow but one of my predictions was that Flex would be the primary RIA technology this year. In my year-end review I went with “no” but I got a lot of email feedback about that and I’ve got a followup.

Wall Street Journal: Flash is coming to the iPhone - iPhone and Flash were bound to be pretty popular topics and I think a lot of the pageviews for this are from search terms. I posted this back in January and we still have no Flash on the iPhone which is a big bummer.

Samsung’s Flash based iPhone killer - I don’t have one of these but maybe I should have picked one up while I was in Japan. It has all the multi-touch goodness of the iPhone but the UI is all done in Flash.

Finetune - The next generation of online music with Apollo and Flash - Finetune is still my favorite AIR application and it was my 5th most popular post. Since that post they’ve been really busy with a Wii version and improving both the browser version and the AIR application. I still think it’s a great example of what the Flash Platform is capable of; being able to reuse code and create experiences on a number of touch points.

So those are the 5 most popular posts this year. Digg was responsible for two of them and any time I mentioned the iPhone I got more hits. One thing that surprised me was that it was all Adobe-centric news (even before I joined Adobe). The 10th most popular post was The scoop on Silverlight for developers which I wrote back in April. It will be interesting to see how the mix changes next year. The past couple of months my page views have been either down or steady so either I’m getting boring or there are just a lot of places to find RIA information now (probably a bit of both). It’s a good sign and I’m looking forward to trying to stay ahead of the curve.

December 17th, 2007

My rich Internet application predictions for 2007. How did I do?

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 6:04 am

Categories: AIR, Adobe, Ajax, Apollo, Apple, Curl, Devigner Workflow, Flex, Microsoft, OpenLaszlo, Prism, Rich Internet Applications, Silverlight, WFP/E, WPF, Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere, XUL, XULRunner

Tags: Microsoft Silverlight, Verdict, Adobe AIR, Microsoft Windows Vista, Rich Internet Application, Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp., Ryan Stewart

2007 was a pretty good year and it saw me end up with a lot of changes including starting work for Adobe in June. I’ve got some thoughts on what’s in store for 2008 and also a summary of 2007 planned but I think it’s best to first go back and look at my rich Internet application predictions for 2007 to see how I did. I made 10 predictions and I’ll score either a yes or no for each one.

1. Vista is going to raise the bar for experiences across the board.
Well I thought Vista changed a lot of things but unfortunately Vista itself just didn’t do well at all. In order for it to raise the bar I think it has to have sold a lot of copies and gotten people talking about new kinds of user interfaces.

Verdict: No (0 - 1)

2. Adobe’s Apollo is going to be much better than expected.
It’s hard to quantify “much” better but I do think that Apollo (now AIR) has had a successful year. A lot of developers have created applications and over 3 betas we’ve got a strong developer base. I thought it would go without saying that we’d have a 1.0 release by now, but I didn’t make that prediction.

Verdict: Yes (1-1)

3. Microsoft is going to make inroads into the design market.
Tough call. Expression Studio has done well as part of the designer/developer workflow in the .NET stack. Does that count as the design market? Then again is Expression Studio even targeted directly at the design market? Maybe to rephrase the question a year later I’d ask “are designers using Expression Studio” and they are.

Verdict: Yes (ish) (2-1)

4. The Designer/Developer workflow will get some mainstream press.
We saw a TON of attention to the designer/developer workflow with Blend getting a new version and Thermo coming out but the mainstream designers still aren’t talking about it. Maybe this is one to revisit for next year.

Verdict: No (2-2)

5. Apple is going to make a play in Rich Internet Applications
Oh Apple, when are you going to step up and show us your RIA strategy? This year Apple did a lot and there is still a lot of energy and excitement around WebKit. The new CSS features and the video tag have moved WebKit closer to an RIA platform but Apple still hasn’t made the play I thought they would.

Verdict: No (2-3)

6. Competition for technology in the online video space will heat up.
This is probably the one I got the most right. Silverlight was released, Flash and even Move networks all started competing for online video. The price of Flash Media Server dropped, Flash got H.264 support, and the content delivery networks started focusing on HD quality. It was a great year for online video.

Verdict: Yes (3-3)

7. Flex becomes the primary technology for building Rich Internet Applications.
Flex had a great year but is it the primary technology for building RIAs? I think at this stage of the game it’s the most mature but primary is a strong word. One thing that’s happened over this year is that the field of RIAs has really blown up. We’ve got Curl, Ajax getting more advanced and Silverlight/WPF applications in the wild. It’s too tough to call Flex the primary technology.

Verdict: No (3-4)

8. “WPF/E” will have a higher penetration than Apollo.
I’d forgotten I predicted this and it actually gave me pause for thought. Would I make this prediction again now that I work for Adobe? Yup, I would. I have no idea what the actual numbers are but AIR isn’t out yet while Silverlight shipped a 1.0 version. Combine that with the fact that Silverlight has gotten some attention on the Microsoft homepage and lined up some good partners and I think it probably wins the penetration game.

Verdict: Yes (4-4)

9. The Mozilla platform and Apollo will fight for the cutting edge Ajax developers.
Another tough one. AIR has done really well with Ajax developers for the most part and Mozilla has been very true to its browser mission. , the desktop runtime they released this year, speaks to that browser mentality and encourages Ajax developers to keep building for the browser. But in the prediction I used XUL as engine by which Mozilla would try to get the cutting edge developers. It didn’t really materialize that way and I’m not sure the cutting edge Ajax developers have gone to AIR either.

Verdict: No (4-5)

10. OpenLaszlo is going to be a beacon for open source developers looking to build Rich Internet Applications.
Interestingly enough it wasn’t OpenLaszlo that made the big open source splash but Flex. OpenLaszlo had a decent year but it was tough to rally the open source troops when 1) they didn’t seem that interested in RIAs in general and 2) your biggest competitor also goes open source. OpenLaszlo did a lot to move closer to Ajax though, so they’ve broadened their appeal this year.

Verdict: No (4-6)

Ouch! only 4 out of 10 last year. Despite my abysmal record, it really was a good year for RIAs. Stay tuned this week for my yearly roundup. Expect the 2008 predictions next year after everyone gets back from vacation. How do you think I did in 2007?

June 27th, 2007

Pownce using AIR (and I've got invites)

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 2:26 pm

Categories: Apollo, Flex, Rich Internet Applications

Tags: Desktop, Desktop Client, Web Site, Ryan Stewart

Kevin Rose unveiled a new project today, Pownce. Pownce looks like it’s going to combine Twitter with the ability to send events, files, and links to your friends. Pownce allows you to send it to a specific person or share with everyone. Based on Leah’s blog it looks like it’s using S3 and of course AIR, the Adobe Integrated Runtime.

Pownce decided to do their desktop client in AIR because it was cross platform and they could use the web skills to port most of the website functionality to the desktop client. I think it’s a pretty good use case for AIR. You can do everything you need to from the website and you’ll never have to download the client if you don’t want to. But if you become a heavy user of Pownce, you’re going to find the desktop client much easier to use and a much better experience overall.

After playing with it for a bit, I’m excited about what Pownce is going to bring to the table. I’m a huge fan of Twitter and Pownce seems kind of like Twitter on steroids. I just hope they can scale. One of the amazing things is that this team has only 3 developers. With those three people they were able to build the website, the desktop client and hook everything together. That’s the kind of thing AIR lets you do. If you’d like invites drop me an email. And I also need more Pownce friends.

Update: The invites are gone but I’ll be sending more out as soon as I have them, so feel free to still email me.

More coverage:
TechCrunch
Mashable
CenterNetworks Video Review
Webware
ParisLemon

June 19th, 2007

Do new verticals need a killer desktop application?

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 3:37 pm

Categories: Apollo, Rich Internet Applications, WPF

Tags: Desktop, Desktop Application, Ryan Stewart

I heard an interesting statement today about the role of desktop applications in new mediums and taking technologies to the next level. Think about email and the move to more rich experiences. Pine was great and the first thing I used to check email. But it wasn’t something that most users could relate to and figure out, so it arguably wasn’t until a rich desktop application came along that email as a medium really took off. The same could be said for web browsers, text editors/word processors and a lot of the software we use.

Part of this is just plain and simple usability. It isn’t hard to create a more usable application on the desktop than a Unix terminal app. But part of the benefit of a rich environment is that you can make things usable because you have a lot of room to work with. You can set expectations and explore new interface paradigms. Things we take for granted as usability must-haves today came from the rich GUI sandboxes that developed after MS-DOS and other command line interfaces.

With the web browser we took a step back in richness and invented some new ideas behind user interfaces. In large part the move to the web made everything more open and undeniably helped bring people together in important ways. In the process we created new types of mediums. Video became collaborative, games became multiplayer and we invented entire sites dedicated to music, fonts, photos and other forms of expression. All living in the web browser.

But I think there is some truth to the fact that moving these new mediums to the desktop will help us flesh out what the mean and by creating the killer desktop application we can take them to the new phase if evolution. What about Facebook as a desktop application? What would it look like? Would it make the experience better? We saw Joost sort of do this with TV and a desktop application. What other new mediums that the web has helped create would be well served by a killer desktop application?

The single greatest thing about technologies like WPF and AIR is that the desktop is fun and exciting again. We’re able to do some fantastically rich things with these technologies and the blending of the web and the desktop means that both sides of the coin are going to benefit.

June 10th, 2007

Adobe announces hardware accelerated video in Flash, Apollo's new name, and two new betas

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 9:00 pm

Categories: Adobe, Apollo, Flash, Flex, Rich Media

Tags: Adobe Systems Inc., HTML, AJAX, Video, Beta, Hardware, Ryan Stewart

We’re announcing a whole lot of things today at Adobe so I wanted to give an overview of some of my favorite parts of the news and what it means for people. I’m going to be on a plane when this goes live, so I’ll link up other sources as soon as I land.

Update:
The news seems to have been well recieved. Scoble chimed with an interesting take, Read/Write Web had solid analysis, TechCrunch posted, and Mashable did as well.

Hardware Accelerated video in the Flash Player
We’re releasing a small update to Flash Player 9 that takes advantage of your Graphical Processing Unit (GPU) when you’re watching video in full screen. As far as I know, this is the first time the Flash Player has done any type of hardware acceleration, so it’s a good first step. We’ve also gone through and optimized some parts of the On2 decoder so that the video will look crisper and perform better.

Introducing AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) - now with Ajax support
Apollo finally has it’s name, AIR (download available here). Along with the new name, we’re releasing a beta version of AIR which include much improved JavaScript/HTML support. You could do HTML before with the Alpha version, but with this beta release, HTML and JavaScript are first class citizens. You can build an AIR application entirely from HTML with no Flash at all. We’re also releasing tools that should make it much easier to build Ajax AIR applications. You can download an extension for Dreamweaver which will package the .air file for you from your Dreamweaver code. We’re also announcing support for the very powerful Aptana IDE. With this, you can use Aptana and get code completion for AIR APIs as well as the ability to create .air files right from Aptana.

Open Source Flex
We announced the open sourcing of Flex earlier this year, but today we’re releasing a beta of Flex 3 which has a number of enhancements and is also the first iteration of our open source initiative. With this beta we will be opening the bug base to everyone and start providing nightly builds for developers to download. It’s not fully open source yet, but we’re trying to move to that as fast as we can, so I think this is an important baby step in that process. Ted Patrick has been covering a lot of the new features in Flex 3 but some of my favorites are deep linking (the URLs now change in the address bar as you navigate around a Flex application making deep linking possible) and the new developer-designer workflow that makes it easy to go between the CS3 suite and Flex 3.

On Air Bus Tour
I saved the best for last. We’re announcing the On Air bus tour which will be a massive 18 city road trip here in North America with events aimed at developers who want to build applications on AIR. At each stop you’ll have a chance to talk with some of the team members, attend sessions on things like building Ajax-based AIR applications and the File System APIs. We’ll also have night events where you can demo a project you’ve been working on in front of the crowd and do some networking with people in your city and on the bus.

The first leg of the tour starts on July 10th in Seattle. We’ll have a live streaming camera on the bus at all times and GPS so you’ll be able to track where we are and what we’re up to. We’ve got a Twitter account for the tour, a Flickr group that you can join, and a blog that we’ll be updating with information about the tour and reports from the event. Luckily we’ll be putting our data cards to good use so there will be lots of blogging and I’ll try not to miss a beat.

June 1st, 2007

Confusion, fear and doubt around Rich Internet Applications

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 12:53 am

Categories: Ajax, Apollo, Flash, Rich Media, Silverlight, WPF

Tags: Desktop, Internet, Internet Application, Web Browser, Ryan Stewart

There is a post up over on Read/Write Web which aims to paint a picture of Rich Internet Applications and poses the question, RIA: What is it good for? Unfortunately I think they miss the mark a bit with both the definition of RIAs and the analysis behind the technologies. Here’s how Alex (the author) sums up the definition of Rich Internet Applications:

The takeaway is that RIA is defined as a mix of three things: desktop-like UI online, offline apps that look like online apps, and online applications that can go offline. Together, these things are a bit confusing. But perhaps if we just said: a browser app with a rich user interface that has offline mode, then things would be simpler. So, to belabor the point, an RIA is a browser app - but it works like a desktop app (e.g. a rich email browser app that works like Outlook).

He bases that off of the Wikipedia definition for Rich Internet Applications which is pretty verbose when you read the whole thing. He then goes on to talk about Apollo and Silverlight, two VERY different RIA technologies for two VERY different tasks. As I see it there are two classes of Rich Internet Applications, those that run in the browser, and those that run on the desktop.

Browser based RIA technologies
The key to any RIA is richness, and before Ajax and Flash, richness in the browser was non existent. First and foremost, what’s great about browser RIAs is that they provide a desktop like interface but inside the browser. That’s very different from what Alex talks about, which is offline mode. Having an “offline mode” isn’t really all that important for Rich Internet Applications. It’s much more about the experience and the performance of desktop applications being brought inside the browser.

If I see one more person compare Silverlight and Apollo I may go crazy. If you want to deliver browser based RIAs, you won’t be using Apollo. You’ll be using Silverlight, you’ll be using Flash, you’ll be using Ajax. Those are examples of technologies that allow you to create rich, desktop like experiences inside the browser. Notably, none of those technologies has a native offline mode. Google Gears allows you to hook into an offline mode, but the browser RIA technologies are not trying to solve any online/offline problem by themselves.

Desktop based RIA technologies
This is a class of RIA that has gotten a lot of attention this year because while everything was moving to the web, the desktop got a bit more exciting. This is really the space where occasionally connected applications fit. It’s also a space that is still very much being defined. Whereas browser RIAs can bring the desktop experience to the web, desktop RIAs focus heavily on better user interfaces and really harnessing the power of the desktop for things like local file system access, native windows (breaking out of the browser chrome) and system-level notifications. In some ways it’s an evolution of the current desktop software that aims to provide solutions that are more web-centric and emphasize design.

This is where Apollo fits in. Alex’s definition of Apollo is confusing at best. Apollo is a separate download from all of Adobe’s other products that allows developers to create desktop applications (with the traits above) using web technologies like Flash and Ajax. But there are some other great desktop RIA solutions. Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) would count as a desktop RIA in my book because it takes full advantage of the desktop world and really embraces great design fundamentals. XULRunner from Mozilla is another example of a platform for building desktop RIAs.

Alex tries to paint the only value add for these new technologies as offline mode, but nothing could be further from the truth. RIAs are all about bringing great design and a great experience to the web. RIAs incorporate rich media and they give designers the ability to build interfaces that are more usable and more engaging. As the space has grown, we’re seeing more and more ways to do that. Sometimes that will be inside the browser. Other times you will want to have an application that resides on the desktop, very close to your users. But throughout the entire spectrum, engaging experiences are the key value add. Google maps took the world by storm because it was a great new experience, not because of a technical feature. Offline mode is a good feature to have when we need it, but it’s definitely not a centerpiece of RIAs.

May 30th, 2007

What Google Gears means for Rich Internet Applications and Apollo

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 4:36 pm

Categories: Adobe, Apollo, Google

Tags: Adobe Systems Inc., Google Inc., Internet, Internet Application, Web Browser, Ryan Stewart

Some big news today that Google is announcing an open source project called “Google Gears” which is an open source collaboration between Google, Adobe, Mozilla, and Opera that enables offline web applications in the browser. It seems very similar to the announcement that Mozilla made about the offline features in Firefox 3 and will be a huge benefit for browser applications everywhere (including those being developed in Flash).

I’m expecting to learn more at the Google Developer Day tomorrow, but here’s how I think the gist of the announcement plays out. Google has obviously invested a lot in the browser and as it stands, the browser handles offline mode very badly (aka, not at all). Gears is going to embed a SQLite database into the browser that can then be used by applications to go offline and continue to work.

I was surprised and glad to see that Adobe and Google were working closely on this. One of the things that has been touted about Apollo were the offline capabilities and that feature has come up in a lot of the discussions about deployment. But as I’ve tried to emphasize (even before I joined Adobe), Apollo is a lot more than that. There is no one “right way”. The browser isn’t going to start delivering every application we use and the desktop isn’t going to rear up again and become the platform of choice for every developer. There is a blend here between browser applications and desktop applications that we will all be finding an equilibrium for. Apollo allows web developers to deploy desktop applications using technologies they know. That doesn’t mean it supplants the browser, just that it enables different kinds of applications.

The other cool thing about this announcement is the information that the Apollo team has been simultaneously working on an embedded database in Apollo. The embedded database will be a part of the public beta for Apollo that is coming soon. It sounds like Adobe and Google are working together to make sure the APIs that tie into SQLite are consistent on both platforms. That should mean developers can pretty easily go between Gears and Apollo as they see fit for different types of applications (or extensions).

It’s going to be very interesting to see how all of this plays out. Whenever Google gets involved, things happen, and this is going to be a huge jolt for web developers everywhere (in a good way). In some ways, this may mean fewer applications built on Apollo, but in the long run, I think it’s going to mean that we’ll see more applications suited for Apollo instead of web applications being ported simply for offline capability.

A lot more technical information from Robert Scoble, TechCrunch and O’Reilly Radar. I am REALLY excited about offline Google Reader. W00t!

May 30th, 2007

Bidding for the first invite to a Rich Internet Application on eBay

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 3:54 pm

Categories: Apollo, eBay

Tags: Sign, Internet, Internet Application, eBay Inc., Ryan Stewart

This is kind of cool so I couldn’t pass up the chance to mention it. The San Dimas project, which is the Apollo demo that nearly everyone has seen (and I got a first crack at here) is close to going public beta. In honor of that, the people on the project decided it would be fitting to auction off the very first invite to try it out.

Right now the bidding is up to $214.50 which is mind boggling to me. I’m not sure if it’s a sign that we really do have too much money in the Valley, but I’ll try to take it as a sign that people are just really exited about trying new Rich Internet Applications out. I wonder what they could get if they auctioned off the first invite to the Silverlight New York Times Reader.

RIApedia had the scoop before I did, so thanks to Mike for the tip.

May 28th, 2007

To browser or not? It doesn't really matter

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 11:40 pm

Categories: Apollo, Experience, Flash, Flex, Silverlight

Tags: Desktop, Web, Web Browser, Ryan Stewart

Rich Internet Applications have gotten a lot of great attention recently. The technologies and acronyms are blending together in a seemingly endless soup of technobabble. Part of that comes with any new technology and in the hyper-attentive world of the web people are quick to make judgments and even quicker to prognosticate the end of the world as we know it. Most recently I saw this in a post by Allison Randal over on O’Reilly Radar (although she isn’t exactly tearing down the walls, her post got me thinking).

The post is actually about LINA, an interesting technology that seems to mirror Apollo a bit in the ability to write one application that can be deployed across multiple platforms. But in the post, Allison speaks heavily about the death of web browser applications:

The wave of the future is not web browser applications. Instead we’re coming full circle back to desktop applications, but this time we’ve broken the old idea of single user silo applications with no connection to the outside world. The wave of the future is lightweight desktop applications with the same massively networked, Web 2.0 behavior we’ve come to expect from browser applications. iTunes is a classic example of this, with both an offline component available all the time, and a seamlessly integrated online component available when connected.

I agree with a good chunk of what she’s saying. I think I’ve been very clear about how important I think desktop development is. I think deploying applications in the browser tends to be inefficient and poorly implemented. The kinds of software applications that people are putting into the browser would be much better on the desktop.

But all that said, I think it’s important to realize that the browser still has a lot of life in it. Technologies like Flash/Flex and Silverlight are only going to become more important as the browser evolves. The browser is a lowest common denominator that has helped create a great deal of innovation and excitement about technology. Forgetting that is both shortsighted and generally a bad idea.

In the end what we should strive for are richer applications across the board. In some cases, the browser will be a great delivery mechanism and for richer experiences Flash and Silverlight will fit the bill perfectly. Other times, your application will require an experience that takes it outside the browser. When that happens, I think it will be very important to blend the good parts of the web into that desktop experience. Things like a quick install, familiar technologies, and a cross platform experience are all things we’ve come to love and expect from the web but that can be translated to the desktop as well. Ultimately it is that blend that will be invaluable to both desktop developers and web developers. The browser won’t ever go away, but if by making it easy to use the best experience for your need, we’ll maximize the utility for everyone; users and developers alike.

May 21st, 2007

Changing the user expectation by freeing applications from the browser

Posted by Ryan Stewart @ 4:17 pm

Categories: Ajax, Apollo, Flash, Silverlight

Tags: Desktop, AJAX, Web Browser, Desktop Application, Ryan Stewart

Disclosure: Last week I announced that I’m working for Adobe. While I haven’t officially started, consider me an Adobe employee for all intents and purposes. I have the disclosure statement at the bottom of the page, but I’ll probably run this for a while just to make sure there isn’t any confusion.

Bill Higgins has a very, very thought provoking post about the “uncanny valley” and the sudden increase in trying to make web applications look like desktop applications. In the “uncanny valley” he is referring to the theory that the more human like our robots become, the more we’re impressed until they reach the point where they are human enough to be creepy, but still not human enough to put us at ease. In his post, he contrasts Ajax applications and web applications.

The post is quite good. It was linked to by Tim O’Reilly and it has a lot of merit. When our web applications work, we’re happy. When they try to imitate desktop applications and they fall short, users aren’t impressed. This, in my opinion, is why Ajax is problematic as a technology. With some exceptions, it gets us to the Uncanny Valley and no further. That results in some very good user experiences, but ones that leave an awkward taste in users mouths.

Part of that may be the environment. What will happen as Ajax applications like Zimbra move to Apollo? Will “being on the desktop” be enough for users to cross the valley and think of these as real desktop applications? But as developers and designers try to create more sophisticated applications in the web browser, is Ajax the right way to go? With the burgeoning crop of Rich Internet Application technologies, we have a way to cross the uncanny valley and really bring a desktop like experience to the web. Flash and Silverlight enable that kind of rich, desktop experience today. Users are responding to them and the developers and designers building on them seem very impressed at the kinds of things you can do. We’re starting to see real apps, not just semi-real looking applications.

As I mentioned, Bill’s post also brings up the question about what users expect and how we give that to them. This is one of the places that I think Apollo shines. It enables you to create a genuine desktop experience, without browser chrome or preconceived browser notions. It does all this with web technologies which has enabled a lot of creativity and innovation. If you take your Ajax or Flash application that hasn’t quite crossed the uncanny valley and deploy it with Apollo, does that make a difference? I think it does. The user mentally makes the switch from expecting a largely HTML based browser application to something more. Apollo enables web developers to create that kind of experience. It isn’t always about offline or technological capabilities. Sometimes it’s about changing expectations by taking your application out of the browser.