X

Adobe Apollo: Cool demo

Adobe Apollo: apps work without a browser

Rafe Needleman Former Editor at Large
Rafe Needleman reviews mobile apps and products for fun, and picks startups apart when he gets bored. He has evaluated thousands of new companies, most of which have since gone out of business.
Rafe Needleman

A cool Flash interface to eBay CNET Networks

Adobe has been pitching its Apollo technology since last year. It's the new platform that will let you install Web apps on the desktop. At Demo 07, we got a nice demo of an eBay app--a Flash interface to the auction site. The app kept working when the Internet connection was pulled. When the demonstrator's laptop was plugged back into the network, the app synced its data back to eBay.

Honestly, the idea of apps that work when disconnected is becoming less important as bandwidth becomes more ubiquitous, but it's still interesting, and the Apollo demos look really good. What's really important is not that they work when disconnected, but rather that they work without a browser. I look forward to seeing a growth of apps that use the Internet but that don't have to live within a browser nor inherit all the user interface elements that aren't necessary in a real app.