Apple Developing Flash Alternative Named Gianduia

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Posted May 7, 2010 at 8:02pm by iClarified

Apple is now using Gianduia, their own standards based framework, to create Rich Internet Apps instead of Flash.

According to AppleInsider, Apple introduced Gianduia last summer at the World of WebObjects Developer Conference.

Named after an Italian hazelnut chocolate, Gianduia is "essentially is browser-side Cocoa (including CoreData) + WebObjects, written in JavaScript by non-js-haters," according to a tweet by developer Jonathan "Wolf" Rentzsch. "Jaw dropped."

After he watched the NDA demo Apple gave at WOWODC last year, Rentzch also tweeted, "Blown away by Gianduia. Cappuccino, SproutCore and JavascriptMVC have serious competition. Serious."

AppleInsider has learned that Apple Retail is already using the framework for several popular services such as the One-to-One program, iPhone reservation system, and its Concierge service for Genius Bar reservations and Personal Shopping.

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Apple Developing Flash Alternative Named Gianduia

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David - May 8, 2010 at 11:23am

It's wrong to call this a Flash alternative, as there's no runtime plugin needed. This is just an HTML5 authoring tool that allows the creation of rich, interactive content without the need for Flash and which will run in any HTML5 browser. The difference is important because otherwise Apple would just be substituting one platform with another.

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Brian - May 8, 2010 at 6:09pm

You clearly don't understand what the word alternative means. An alternative to Flash does not need to be another plugin. Gianduia is a framework that lets you "create Rich Internet Apps"; something developers used to use Flash for. So if you can use Gianduia instead of Flash to create your content it is an alternative. Alternative=Instead Of.

Kiro Velkovski - May 8, 2010 at 11:16am

Well, Apple points to the problem, waited three years, and now it offers a solution. HTML5 for video, this one (awful name) for the rest... Flash really sucks.

David - May 8, 2010 at 11:27am

Kingsford, See my other comment. The poor story write-up led you to the wrong conclusion. This isn't a Flash replacement, since the output is just HTML5. Anyone else could also write such a tool and Apple would be perfectly fine with it. Multiple authoring tools have been the case with HTML for a long time ... this just provides a new HTML5 system that is easy for Apple developers to work with because it preserves so many Cocoa concepts that they are used to. Flash requires an Adobe-supplied *player* to display it, which is the crux of the problem.