"Write once, run everywhere" is the web applications promise. Unfortunately we have a lot of work to do to make web applications comparable to native apps.
Google's following through on that lofty goal in a reasonable way. Assuming one uses their product lines.
Too bad its still Java though :p (with many advances in sandboxing and security), but I guess Google/Android didn't really have much of an option back then and I'm honestly not sure what would be the better choice now.
As long as you didn't need a user interface :-) Back then, you were lucky to get any Applet working without crashing the browser. From what I remember, GD was pretty much the only way to draw anything besides ASCII art. Oh and that Macromedia... shudders
