Apple developing Flash alternative named Gianduia
As Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight duke it out over their plugin-based, HTML-alternative web platforms, Apple is using Gianduia, its new a client-side, standards based framework for Rich Internet Apps, to create production quality online apps for its retail users.
Context & Ripple Effects
This lands mid-quarrel. In April, Adobe's platform evangelist published "Apple Slaps Developers In The Face", attacking Apple's terms for blocking cross-compiled iPhone apps, and followed it with a defense of Flash CS5 days later — so Apple's own tooling answer was the missing half of the argument. Gianduia is that half: rather than merely rejecting plugin-based rich internet apps on its devices, Apple is building a standards-based client-side framework of its own and shipping real retail applications on it.
The competitive frame is three-way, not two-way: Adobe's Flash and Microsoft's Silverlight are already fighting over the same rich-internet-app territory with plugin-based platforms, while tools like Sprout's dual-output ad builder show developers hedging between HTML5 and Flash output. A first-party Apple framework pushes that contest from plugins toward native web standards.
First-order effects
- Adobe and Microsoft now face a rival whose framework is standards-based and ships inside the world's most valuable device ecosystem — their plugin-based delivery model becomes the differentiator they must defend rather than assume.
- Apple's retail operations become the proving ground: production-quality customer-facing apps built on Gianduia give Apple internal evidence about whether the framework can replace Flash-class experiences before any external developer is asked to adopt it.
Second-order effects
- Tooling vendors like Sprout, already letting advertisers target HTML5 and Flash simultaneously, gain leverage from every Apple move toward standards-based rich apps — dual-output becomes the safe default for agencies caught between platforms.
- Silverlight's position narrows further if the market reads Gianduia as confirmation that the browser-plugin era is ending; Microsoft would need to argue its runtime offers something web standards cannot.
Third-order effects
- If Apple proves rich internet apps can be built without third-party runtimes, pressure shifts onto Adobe and Microsoft to either port their platforms to open web technologies or cede the category — a structural test of whether proprietary plugins survive at all in mainstream web development.
The trend: Rich internet application development is migrating from plugin-based runtimes like Flash and Silverlight toward standards-based frameworks, with Apple using both platform control and first-party tooling to force the transition.