This week, i'm at the Adobe AIR bus road show. It's interesting because it's interesting to see how the server vs. client pendulum is swinging back from server based tech to client based, particularly when folks debate the existence of web based operating systems.
Consider that for years, we've had a kinda interesting environment. Companies and sites are pretty much pumping out data and services at a huge rate, almost trying to out-do each other. There are multiple maps services, several on-line data storage sites, dozens of searches and nearly anything you can imagine provided as snippets of RSS.
Where things are getting most interesting, though, is in the semi-connected life.
The thing that a lot of folks tend to forget is that the omnipresent net usually isn't. There are lots of reasons for that and if i need to explain any of them to you, you really need to get out more.
So, what makes these apps different from the ones that you normally run? Well, there's a new aspect of the OS that folks are talking about. That part being, the network. Call it Web OS, Cloud, or nothing at all, the where i think things are going is a true, platform neutral interface that lets folks get as much or as little app as they want. Stuff gets locally cached and remotely updated, stuff gets synced when possible.
Java was supposed to provide that. In fact, that was one of the big promises. It came with the promise of ultimate portability that never really materialized for folks running FreeBSD or some other platforms. Perhaps javascript will provide that. Stuff like Gears and AIR certainly seem to provide more of that. i'm not sure i like Gear's approach of intertwining things, but then i'm also not a huge fan of specialized VMs like what Adobe has right now. Still, both have promise, and i can think of a few ways that this sort of problem could be solved pretty easily.
Heh, Jeremy is right, sort of. It's there is no WebOS. It's that the Web is going to be part of the OS.
Save This Page
