So what about Flex and, especially, Apollo (http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Apollo) then? Is Apollo likely to achieve mass adoption? Would startups be well advised to consider building applications on it?
I can't find the reference now, but I *think* I've just read something suggesting that the install process for an Apollo applet will involve an "install-this-application?" confirmation dialog followed by a download of 30 seconds or so. If so then Apollo's less promising than I hoped. That kind of install may be low-friction by desktop-app standards but it doesn't compare to the ease of starting a browser-based AJAX or Flash application. (Consider how easy it is to use maps.google.com for the first time.)
Surely it will at least be that Apollo applications will run untrusted by default, and that an already-installed app will start automatically whenever you take your browser to the URL you downloaded it from?
