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So if you all don’t know Apollo is Adobe’s big new thing. Especially exciting to us Flash Developers, Flash has become the most widely adopted cross-browser plugin made and now Adobe wants to make Flash the most widely adopted cross-platform application framework ever made. A true right once, run everywhere, Adobe’s Java. And we’ve been curious as hell to get our hands on Apollo and we may have seen our first application running on it. Adobe has recently released an app called Digital-Editions. Its pretty much a new pdf reader and e-book library that looks built in Flash. But it requires you to download an Add-In to make it work. Here is the text straight from the FAQ:

Why do I need to install the Adobe Digital Editions Add-In?
In order to use Adobe Digital Editions you must install the Digital Editions Add-In. It is a special version of Adobe Flash Player that includes PDF and XHTML-based document viewing and local file management capabilities.

Now the only thing that I know Adobe working on to allow a “special version of Adobe Flash Player that includes PDF and XHTML� features is Apollo. I like the name Apollo for the product, but it seems we also have the framework being referenced as “Digital Editions Add-In�. Its all exciting to see how all the pieces will come together.

I looked a little deeper and found “Is Digital Editions an Apollo application?� in the FAQ.

Is Digital Editions an Apollo application?
Not yet. Digital Editions is a specific rich Internet application (RIA) built on the current version of the Adobe Engagement Platform, including Flash Player 9 and Flex 2. The Apollo project is in essence developing the next version of the runtime engine of Adobe’s Engagement Platform. As an RIA that can operate offline and outside the browser, Digital Editions exemplifies the kind of next-generation application that the Apollo runtime will enable 3rd party developers to create.

Either way, I just tried out Digital Editions and its need to have Adobe create products out of their own tools….