May 8th, 2007
Apple and Rich Internet Applications
I had a chat with Ron Okamoto, the vice president of worldwide developer relations at Apple today regarding their Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). Both Steve Borsch and me have been questioning when and if Apple would get into the Rich Internet Application game and after this chat, I think we're in for some cool things from Apple.
The influx of Mac users has made Mac development fun and interesting again. To that end, the WWDC features a track to bring developers up to speed on the Mac platform. There is even an "immersion Monday" planned which will help get windows developers and students ready for the main developer track and familiar with the Mac development model.
But the coolest thing from a RIA standpoint is the new Content and Media track at the conference. In this track, there are some great sessions for people looking to build RIAs on the Mac. I asked Ron how much of this was cross platform, and he said he wasn't sure, but that the primary focus was on the Mac. That seems true, but there are a lot of sessions about Ajax and WebKit (and I wonder if some of them could be used with Apollo, which uses WebKit for HTML). Some of the sessions that would seem to be Mac only right now, might easily be made cross platform down the road and get me excited. For instance, there is a session on Ajax methodologies for QuickTime development which looks very intriguing, especially since QuickTime would be a great cross-platform starting point for Apple in the RIA world. There is also a session on Designing and Developing Hybrid-Web/Cocoa Applications which would seem right up the alley of any RIA developer:
Leopard supports combining the power of the desktop experience with the latest advanced Web 2.0 techniques in hybrid-Web/Cocoa applications. Discover advanced uses of WebKit, XHTML, CSS, and AJAX in creating rich user interfaces for applications. Learn how industry experts are building lightweight Cocoa applications that allow easy binding of JavaScript to CoreData, and hear how they intend to use this configuration to make powerful applications.
The Content Media track is hardly the smoking gun which says Apple is fully getting into the RIA game. But it does focus very heavily on the kind web/desktop integration which is a hallmark of Rich Internet Applications. With QuickTime installed on a lot of machines and synonymous with a great media experience, Apple could turn that into a quality RIA platform. WWDC looks like a great conference for getting in on the ground floor.
Ryan Stewart, a Rich Internet Application developer and industry analyst, recently joined Adobe's Platform Team as a Rich Internet Application Evangelist. full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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