Apollo : Breaking out of the Browser

I made a rather long post about Apollo in general, I intend to explore in a little more depth some of the opportunities that will arise as Apollo emerges onto the scene.

One of my first thoughts is on the implications of being able to create rich internet (desktop integrated) apps without any of the imposing restrictions of the browser. I think this is a neccessary step for RIAs and will go towards further defining the distinction between web applications and websites.

People have said for years now one of the downfalls of Flash is that you can't use the browsers "Back" button. Well, it's common knowledge that you can code around this issue and cater for Back buttoners, but should you have to?

As I eluded to, a web application is not a web site. The back button is merely a built in function of the [current] means to access a web application and it is here where the perception of web apps has been cloudy in the past. A web application is an application developed to perform a specific task that is enabled through web technologies. Until now we have been used to, and only used a web browser to access such an application as that is all we have had available. On reflection, the browser is perhaps not the right tool with which to access web applications, web apps were certainly not what browsers were originally designed for.

Apollo seems to be a platform that is lending itself to this purpose, if your application doesn't need to offer Back, Forward, Refresh, Bookmark functionality... then don't offer it.