
Why Apollo?  - bootload
http://weblogs.macromedia.com/mesh/archives/2007/03/why_apollo.html
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bootload
_'... There has been a lot of excitement, interest and discussion around
Apollo, especially since we released the public alpha ...'_

Warning: The author is a _product dev manager_ so it's going to be slanted
towards the framework. One problem I have with this approach it is it requires
flash. Sure it might look good, be easy to develop but I don't have (can't
get) flash because they don't compile the 64 bit linux version (yet).

Sure there might be hacks but it reminds me of the plugin-wars of the '90's.

~~~
walesmd
Doesn't flash have an install base of something ridiculous, like 96% of end
users?

Saying flash reminds you of the plugin wars is pretty off track, the war is
over and a winner has been announced.

~~~
bootload
_'... install base of something ridiculous, like 96% of end users? ...'_

Yeah but non-flash apps hit 100%. So are you 100% sure that all your users
have flash usability all the time? So you have factored in the extra code to
detect browsers with & without and covered the 4% or portions of the 96% that
may have a buggy flash install?

 _'... Saying flash reminds you of the plugin wars is pretty off track, the
war is over and a winner has been announced. ...'_

in the sense that you still have to download, install & hope they work. Now
there is another _layer_ on top to get in the way albeit with less choice.
Flash has it's place. But in moderation. It's just another form of vendor
lock-in for developers and cannot always guarantee anything approaching usable
results when it fails.

_'... About 99% of the time, the presence of Flash on a website constitutes a
usability disease ...'_ [0]

It doesn't have to be that way when most of the time there are alternatives.
Neilson recognised using flash as a problem in 2000 [1] and despite what he
says in 2002 it's still the choice of developers, designers who want to limit
their users interactions. [2]

Reference

[0] Jakob Nielsen, Useit.com, 'Flash: 99% Bad'

<http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20001029.html>

[1] Jakob Nielsen, Useit.com, 'Flash: 99% Bad, Update Added June 3, 2002:
Flash Now Improved', Ibid.

[2] Flickr makes good use of flash in their set & collection tool. But I had
the case last year where a bug in the Flash version for Fox scrubbed all the
text in all Flash rendered screens leaving me to guess the manipulation
process.

------
imp
This article definitely got me more excited about Apollo than the previous
reviews I read when it first came out. I can think of one instance where it
might be of use to me, assuming I only have to click one button to convert my
web-app to an Apollo-app. It'll be interesting how closely the final product
comes to meeting these ambitious goals.

