Adobe’s Apollo to unite Flash and Acrobat in ‘Desktop Revolution’

Adobe has announced details of one of its first products since its merger with Macromedia. The project, code-named Apollo, will blur the lines between Web and desktop PC’s by enabling applications made from Flash and PDF to move beyond the browser. Speaking to PDFZone, Todd Hay, Adobe's director of platform marketing and developer believes the technology will provide developers with the tools to create run-time applications available offline without a browser, and will incur the lower costs associated with Web development tools that require Web browsers.

"It's incorporating the skills that people are using with HTML and adding to that much tighter integration with the desktop," Hay said. "So it's kind of a bridging the worlds of the in-browser Flash experience and the desktop client Reader experience—but focused on the delivery of a new form of rich-media applications."

Apollo aims to enable applications currently made from Flash and PDF to move beyond the browser by assigning Flash-based apps a desktop icon that can be launched like traditional applications.

Whilst Hay concedes that Flash developers are likely to have a head start in creating Apollo applications, his team are working to allow PDF developers and those who work in HTML and AJAX to build apps in those environments that can then be enriched with Flash.

"Apollo aims to create a cross-platform run-time that will allow you to develop desktop applications using traditional Web development," said Mike Chambers, an Adobe senior product manager, in an April podcast hosted on the Adobe site.

Apollo’s arrival will follow in the footsteps of third party Tools for Flash which have always aimed to bring Flash Content to the users desktop. Multidmedia Limited’s (MDM) Zinc Software has thus far led the “desktop revolution” by allowing users to build Flash projectors which can be deployed to Windows, Mac OSX and Pocket PC platforms.

“Flash on the Desktop is nothing new” commented MDM CEO, Jaspal Sohal. “Zinc pioneered several firsts in Desktop Flash Development, which has really forced the industry to sit up and evolve Flash to the users Desktop. Something that Zinc, and others, have been doing for years.”

Apollo’s launch will aid Adobe in its plans to merge Flash Player, Flash and HTML into a single ‘universal client’ as part of its long-term strategy.

Adobe is aiming to release a free Apollo public alpha for developers on the Adobe Labs site later this year