Who needs Apollo?
Mon, May 7, 2007
I have been playing with Adobe Apollo today. It’s a product that is somehow not completely compatible with the most visible trend on the web: The web as the only interface on your computer.
I was having big difficulties understanding why I should have to write or use Apollo applications. But finetune desktop shows some of the potential of Apollo.
Nice application, but it’s also kind of scary. If the application is able to access my iTunes, it can also access my Adressbook and email.
This also solves my problem: I will write an addictive simple game. It has to be run in Apollo for “technical” reasons. To add to the suspense in the game, the game asks Microsoft Office which 10 documents you use the most. In an absolutely thrilling game you have the ability to win back the files, if you fail they will unfortunately be deleted.
Don’t know for sure whether it is possible to write such a game in Apollo. But it is certainly possible to create some serious privacy problems.
Popularity: 7% [?]
May 7th, 2007 at 6:09 pm
Seems a cheap shot IMO. All programs have the ability to be malicious if the developer chooses to make them so, it’s not specific to Apollo created ones. Second, and more inline with what Apollo actually is, Zinc…SWFKit…SWF Studio…mProjector and other existing wrappers already allow the same ability (and more) and have for years so again, it seems you are using Apollo as a scapegoat with privacy concerns as bait to discourage.
With your reasoning, all installed applications (whether wrapped flash or created with an upper level laqnguage) are terrorists waiting to hold our files hostage.
May 7th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
Security is a real issue for any application framework… there are lots of ways to sandbox applications to keep them from your files. In our case we are access the iTunes XML read only…. I cant recall if that is forced by apollo or not but it could be.
Another thing they could do is have the application report on install what it will need access to, report that back to the user to override or cancel the install… and then the framework could enforce the authorized sandbox.
Web only access… well yeah thats fantastic if your not working with large files like a media library. Finetune certainly can play a role in minimizing the amount of local storage a user needs to access good music…. but people have files now and their not all about to upload them off their PCs without a good reason…. so access to whats on the hard drive can be beneficial. Synching your iPod for a run from web site storage… hmm maybe there’s a business there!
The other thing you need to realize is that all the windows and osx native applications that people download every day have full access to the file system… so this isn’t a new problem. Users need to be smart about downloading software only from the site of origin… and they need to choose wisely which application developers they trust.
May 7th, 2007 at 9:48 pm
Raymond, you disappoint me
I’d love to give you some more insight during a 1-on-1. Are you planning to go to Adobe Live later this month? If so, let’s try to sit down together to go through this.
May 7th, 2007 at 11:03 pm
Thanks for the comments. I admit my post was a bit of a cheap shot. But nonetheless I am a bit concerned about some security/privacy issues (don’t want anyone to know I have some Justin Timberlake in my iTunes).
I feel relatively save now on my mac, free to experiment with online services while my real data stays save. Apollo is the first real possibility of giving flash “with something extra” (the type of applications that could be made with zinc, swfkit.. ) a huge platform. It’s certainly not a new problem, or a Apollo specific problem. But the Apollo will be different, because it will have a high market penetration (compared to other flash++ tools). And it will be different because the applications are installed in a way that is new for most users. How can a user evaluate whether the origin can be trusted?
But anyhow, I don’t want to disappoint Waldo any further. I will be at Adobe Live (first day).