Apollo – as the “addon” technology
We can all see the value of creating a flex application that behaves as a flex application but has benefit of accessing certain parts of the desktop, or just being a desktop application. But not many people are talking about the "addon" value. Hey maybe I made a new web 3.0 term.
Consider your options of making an Apollo application that can load gmail, but has a side panel full of your outlook contacts loaded from the disk, that has interactions with gmail like populating the "to" form field. Or that Ebay app that was released allowing you to sign in and manage your watch list or currently running bids. I think alot of the value of apollo will come from being an "addon" to existing web applications. Being a bridge between current desktops application data and a web applications interaction.
Problem I am finding with one thing I am working on in this space is that not all sites have API's that I cant access anything to perform certain actions. So I have to break out to screen scrapping. And that is most certainly going to get me into trouble, not to mention the hack factor for the application.
How are sites going to feel about other developers loading pages in an Apollo application and modifying the behavior of the html upon loading it in.
Apollo in its early public alpha situation doesn't show a lot of the planned functionality for the html control, but as things progress and more features are added I'm pretty sure this is going to be a big appeal of the Apollo platform.
we’re currently going thru a wave of “only do one thing but do it well” and now you’re looking at integration/ rolling up apps together?
back to the future, man.
but seriously, I think you’re onto something here. Take SOA and give the whole thing a new spin. While I can see (for example) Gmail offering an API so you could “re-purpose” it, the same old hairy chesnuts of moving targets coming back to the fore. Sloppy webservices being a case in point.
a (sort of) example: I enjoyed a cute little app called “OurTunes” … until Apple upgraded iTunes and broke it… and I’m still waiting for the OurTunes guys to get around to a new version.
but (IMHO) you’re right: integration will be very important.
Hahaha but I reached 88mph and my flux capacitor is all charged. Yeah this was more of a prediction as to where alot of value “COULD” be. Anyway Gmail does email well, and say I do contacts well (like linked in or something), each we do something well…bridging the two would be the value….hairy chestnuts aside (love the term btw)