OK, so perhaps they are not quite putting everyone "to shame" as I said, but the foundations of what they have built are incredibly advanced, and appear to be a major step forward in the web application space. Let's not forget that other languages like Actionscript (of Flash) requires the Flash plug-in on the client side, same with Flex.

The amazing thing about Cappuccino is that, despite requiring a new language for many developers to learn, the user receives a desktop application style experience without needing to install anything more than the browser itself.

Simply skinning an app built in HTML and CSS and a js framework like mootools (which we use throughout the site) or script.aculo.us doesn't give the same level of desktop style experience without extensive work. It's a lot about the fundamental way the framework has been thought out - with a view to creating applications - nothing other than SproutCore takes the same fundamental approach.

With regards to making everything look "Apple-esque", the UI images they have included were designed to be platform agnostic, and were made especially for Cappuccino. That said, they do still look more Apple inspired than, say, Sony inspired. I know that if we were to use the framework we wouldn't want to use their button styles as they don't match our styling. Thankfully as it's entirely open source, you can customise all of the images yourself. So this becomes a non-issue.

@Gary

There is no reason for apps built using Cappuccino to not work on the iPhone. In fact I just tried one of their demo apps - Lights Off - on my iPhone and it seems to work great: http://cappuccino.org/learn/demos/LightsOff/

Either way, there's a lot of promise here.

James

The thing I find astonishing about cappucino though is since it has been created by some mac devs you would think webapps built using the framework would render on mobile safari (iphone) well they dont!

1.)Things I don't like about Atlas are that everything seems to look like an Apple interface which dandy if you into that sort of thing but honestly? What if my client is Sony?

2.)The learning curve of yet another language like Objective-J is a total put off, of course a solid community and very comprehensive documentation could help but it still takes time...

Have you looked into Google GWT? You could have just as easily skinned any app framework be it .NET/GWT/Flex/Ajax framework of your choice... there is nothing about Atlas that jumps out at me and makes me want to spend the time and money...

I need to get learning Objective-J and the Cappuccino framework so I can start working on stuff like this!

The great thing about some of the latest web apps is that as soon as your internet connection is lost it does not necessarily mean the app is unusable - Google Gears allows services like Google Reader and even WordPress administration to be usable even while you're not connected to the internet.

I realise that Flash has its uses - for instance we still use Flash to show traffic data in Accounts on GoSquared. There is still nothing better than Flash for building great graphs that visualise complex data in an interactive way. However, it is clear that 280 North are a long way ahead of many other web app development firms in that they are building software that is comparable to desktop software, on foundations that are strikingly different.

That being said, this 280 Atlas stuff looks great for building js based applications, but, again, depending on what that app does, it's pertinent to make sure that js is the right tool for the job. I am impressed with what they're doing, but saying they're putting everyone else to shame is a bit over the top. Web based apps are great, until your net connection goes down.

I need to get learning Objective-J and the Cappuccino framework so I can start working on stuff like this!