As you’ve probably heard, we’ve released the first public alpha of the Apollo runtime. Woo-hoo!
If you’re not familiar, Apollo is the code name for a cross-operating system runtime being developed by Adobe that allows developers to leverage their existing web development skills (Flash, Flex, HTML, JavaScript, Ajax) to build and deploy rich Internet applications (RIAs) to the desktop. I joined the Apollo team in mid-December of 2006 after working as the Sr. Product Manager for Flash for the last three years.
The resulting coverage of our first public release of Apollo has been overwhelming. I thought I would take a minute to list some links to interesting resources, interviews, demos, and press coverage.
Learning more about Apollo
First of all, if you’d like to know what Apollo is, start by watching the video of Adobe’s Chief Software Architect Kevin Lynch giving his Apollo overview at our Apollo Camp event last week.
Read Mike Chambers’ LoggedIn article on the Adobe Developer Center
Read Kevin Lynch’s thoughts on the Apollo alpha
Read Kevin Lynch’s article about Apollo in the Adobe Edge newsletter
Check out the “Apollo for Flex Developers” Pocket Guide by O’Reilly in PDF form on the Adobe Developer Center
Apollo Demos
Watch the video of my 6-minute Apollo demo at the DEMO 07 conference in Palm Springs
Watch Mike Chambers and Christian Cantrell demonstrate two Apollo apps that Christian built in the Edge newsletter
Get Started with Apollo
Download Apollo and the SDK
Build your first Apollo app by watching this free training video from Lynda.com, presented by Mike Chambers
Read the Apollo Alpha release notes
Read the Apollo Developer FAQ
Review the Apollo documentation
Watch Mike Chambers “Introduction to Apollo” presentation on Apollo at Apollo Camp
Join the Community
Join the Apollo Coders mailing list to ask questions and learn from others in the community – we participate in this as well
Monitor the Apollo support forum on adobe.com
Track what the community is saying on MXNA using the Apollo smart category
Also track community discussion around Apollo on Technorati
Apollo Examples
Apollo sample applications on Adobe Labs
FineTune Desktop – Teknision
FotoBooth example – EverythingFlex.com
Grabit HTML example – EverythingFlex.com
Fullscreen Papervision with Transparency example – theflexblog.com, Lee Brimelow
3D Web Apollo Application – theflexblog.com, Lee Brimelow
Press coverage
Anil Dash of MovableType goes first because he gave Mike Chambers and I a shout-out :)
- http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/news/2007/03/adobe-apollo.html
- Ryan Stewart on ZDNet
- Michael Arrington on Techcrunch
- Robert Scoble on scobleizer.com
- Ajaxian >> Adobe Apollo Alpha release
- Readwriteweb >> Adobe launches Apollo, alpha version
- CNET News.com >> Test flight for Adobe’s Apollo
- blogs.wired.com MonkeyBites >> Adobe Launches Apollo
- GigaOM >> The Coming Apollo vs. Firefox Battle
- SiliconValley.com >> Adobe introduces Apollo
- Adobe targets developers with Apollo | Channel Register
- Apollo Alpha to be released to the public | 901am.com
- StartupSquad >> Adobe launches Apollo alpha
- Apollo Lands | Mashable.com
- MacNN >> Adobe releases Apollo Alpha
- ITWorld.com >> Adobe releases first Apollo code to developers
- SYS-CON >> Adobe Announces Apollo at AJAXWORLD
- Plenty of haters on Slashdot :)
You can also track press via Google News or Techmeme
And I’ve also been tagging press coverage via del.icio.us with “apollopress” – follow it here.
For anyone interested and concerned with Apollo development a new forum has been launched just for the community, take a look and join in on this new technology–be one of the first to soak it up:
http://www.codeapollo.com
Hi Mike,
Awesome list! Here is a simple example I put together demonstrating Apollo’s ability to write serialized objects to the file system. I thought this would be appropriate to add.
http://seantheflashguy.com/blog/?p=6
Regards,
Sean Moore
PS: Apollo Camp was awesome. Adobe kicks so much booty for hosting the event! Also, THANK YOU ADOBE for the copy of Flex Builder!!!!!!
Hi, I’ve made my own Apollo 3D test.
It utilizes Google Maps, Papervision3D, and Apollo Alpha HTML component to create the interactive 3D representation of Google Maps (it is draggable in 3D). Actually, any web page can be rendered by this app. There’s two options — planar and spherical view and possibility to load any location.
Mike, Your apollo team has done a great job. However, there is only one big issue with apollo right now: it does not run within the browser and that is an extremely important missing feature. The definition of apollo needs to be changed to “Apollo is the code name for a cross-operating system runtime … to build and deploy applications to the desktop” not “RIA”. Applications running on the desktop can be Rich (GUI-based) and can connect to the internet. On the other hand, RIA are GUI applications that run within the browser itself. It is very misleading to say that Apollo is about RIA. Flex is about RIA, not apollo. The day when the apollo runtime could run within the browser (as an addon, the same way the flash player run within a browser), then we can say apollo is about RIA.
There is a big need for combining Flex, HTML and PDF within the same application. Flex cannot handle HTML and PDF. So we were hoping apollo was going to address this issue, but then apollo turned out to be only for the desktop. This was a big disappointment because the problem of combining HTML, PDF, and Flex within an application that run WITHIN the browser is still open. I hope apollo team will address this big issue by making apollo runtime run within the browser (of course in this case the I/O API cannot be used, but who cares about manipulating the local filesystem. Combining HTML and Flex within the browser is far more important).
Thanks,
Hamid.
My apologies if this borders on spam, but I know a lot of us missed out on the sold-out ApolloCamp last month, so you might consider the upcoming ApolloRanch in Boulder, Colorado May 5th. Similar information, all new demo apps — really cool stuff.
http://apolloranch.eventbrite.com/
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article Apollo Alpha release link roundup, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.
basboc
thank you