Flash pages have been the bane of many a web surfer's existence for ages. Apple may have finally found a way to toss Flash into the rubbish bin of web history with the new project Sproutcore framework, bringing Cocoa to the web.

Tucked away in a boring sounding WWDC session called "Building Native Look-and-Feel Web Applications Using SproutCore", Apple quietly revealed one of the biggest announcements to come out of WWDC this year, a possible revolution against the much despised Flash.

It's a shame Apple didn't put this in the keynote. Far more interesting than half the applications "revealed" during the keynote and much more innovative than the iPhone, Sproutcore has my full attention.

In a case of a marketing department not taking full advantage of the uniqueness of a product (or more likely not understanding the implications of a product), the copy used to tout the session came off as dry:

"SproutCore is an open source, platform-independent, Cocoa-inspired JavaScript framework for creating web applications that look and feel like Desktop applications. Learn how to combine SproutCore with HTML5's standard offline data storage technologies to deliver a first-class user experience and exceptional performance in your web application."

Had I been fortunate enough to attend WWDC, I would have possibly skipped that session, and that would have been my loss. I'm wondering how many others made the same decision because the product was made to sound so run of the mill?

What can Sproutcore do? Chances are, if you use .Mac's Web Gallery you have already seen it in limited action. Web Gallery was made using the Sproutcore framework. The main benefit to Sproutcore implementation lies in its scale, however.

Javascript is a highly under utilized programming language that is already widely available across multiple browser and mobile browser platforms. Currently Javascript is used for making animations, games and other minimal nuggets online.

Sproutcore is a framework that makes it possible to deploy actual, usuable, fully functional applications over the web. This means that applications developed using Sproutcore automatically have the Javascript audience to launch to, which brings huge opportunities to the average application launch.

This development of Sproutcore as a viable alternative to Flash goes hand in hand with Jobs disdain for Flash in general. It also meshes with comments he has made in the past regarding the use of Flash on mobile devices like the iPhone. Sproutcore offers a near-instant deployment option for browsers on desktops and laptops, but also for mobile browsers.

The appealing thing about applications built using Sproutcore are how similar in function and use they are to Cocoa desktop applications. If you have used a Mac in recent years, you will immediately know what I'm talking about - sleek, simple, reliable applications.

I'm excited about this new Sproutcore framework. If you are a developer for the Mac or iPhone you should be excited also, as it expands your programming and deployment horizons exponentially. For more details on the development aspect of Sproutcore, visit this link for an excellent write up of its functionality.

(Images courtesy of Sproutcore.com)