RIA Weekly #46 – Desktop RIAs with Titanium, SXSWi 09, HBO & Flash Video

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This week, Ryan and I are joined by Appcelerator‘s Jeff Haynie.

Here are some highlights and show notes:

• Jeff being on, we start out talking about the Appcelerator SDK and their desktop application framework, Titanium.
• SOA become dominate on the server, but with RIAs and “connected applications” on the desktop, it seems like SOA (if only in the simple version) is mattering on the desktop more and more.
• I ask Jeff what kind of usage are you seeing for desktop RIA stuff? Rather than look at the question as one about SOA’s, he starts suggesting that desktop RIAs are just desktop applications frameworks and platforms. Jeff uses Skype as an example of something that’d do well there. Going after a real, cross-platform GUI toolkit, application development stack. Titanium example: gaming, video surveillance. Also, bringing the web developer skills to desktop development.
• Ryan asks how Jeff deals with complaints about native UI vs. cross-platform UI? Historic example: Java GUIs looking the same everywhere. But then, there’s web-native apps that look like GUI apps, like Miro the video player. Also 280 North Atlas stuff.
• Titanium supports several web-languages on for desktop programming, like PHP, most interestingly.
• Appcelerator’s business model – yes, there is one. “Open Source 2.0.” Goal is later this year to introduce some cloud-based services.
• This cloud-based service model prompts us to talk about Acquia’s cloud-based services announcements this week: hosting drupal, search services, etc.
• Ryan mentions Todd Biske’s further discussion of RIAs and portal.
• Jeff gives us a nice, pat wrap-up quote on what desktop RIAs are: “building desktop applications with web applications.”
• HBO with Flash? Ryan and Coté asked for more info, but there was not really any forth-coming. We each hope this means we can watch HBO shows on-demand, even if we have to pay for them.
• Ryan asks about video support for Appcelerator, more generally, for open source. Jeff says that right now, it’s Silverlight and Flash. They’d like to see OGG/Theoria as the container/format.
• It being next week, we go over SXSW: Adobe Awards panel, Ryan’s panels & session, all 3 of them! Chris Bernard’s curated SXSW lists; Coté recommendations, namely the free meat party. As we did last year, we’ll try to get a few video episodes of RIA Weekly out.

Sponsorship

This Episode is Sponsored by Adobe:

Use the Adobe Flex framework and Adobe AIR to create rich Internet applications. RIAs that combine the wide reach of the browser and the flexibility of applications that can also be delivered outside the browser. Adobe Flex combined with Adobe AIR provides an agile and powerful solution to develop and make quick iterations on applications that reach across platforms and deliver a consistent user experience.

Download the free Flex Builder trial and the Adobe AIR SDK and start building the next- generation of RIAs.

Disclosure: Adobe is a client and sponsored this podcast. Appcelerator, Microsoft, and Acquia are clients as well.