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Are Desktop Applications Dying?

8 points by rgeorge28 16y ago

Qz 16y ago
Seem like a promo for SproutCore more than anything substantive about the 'death' of desktop applications.
- boucher 16y ago
  And a pretty misleading one at that. "The iPad team worked with the SproutCore team to provide native hardware acceleration to the JavaScript layer..." Yeah, that couldn't be further from the truth. MobileWebKit has had hardware accelerated 3D transforms since before SproutCore existed. And that's the only part of the entire equation that is hardware accelerated. Plus, you can also do it at the Obj-C level, it's not something unique to MobileWebKit. For many things, JavaScript on these mobile devices is fast enough. But let's not pretend it compares to native app performance. It is, in fact, 50-100x slower. It just turns out that in a lot of cases you don't really need that speed (which is true in lots of environments -- look at ruby).
deleted 16y ago
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demallien 16y ago
Yeah, no. There is not one single example of an application which has both a webapp version and a desktop version, where I prefer the webapp version. Not one. The closet I could come to that was preferring the real Facebook site to their iPhone app. But even there, on the iPhone, I prefer the app to the website.
krschultz 16y ago
So he picks two examples where they implemented hardware acceleration for web apps on a single device as an example where web apps are superior, and extropates that to desktop apps are dieing. Desktop utility and shareware apps are dieing. Why use a TO-DO list on your computer when there is remember the milk? Email I can see a good reason for it being in the cloud. Is Photoshop going to be replaced? AutoCAD? 3D Studio? Even MS Office? No.
jheriko 16y ago
Its a shame the article is so lacking in content... this is an interesting subject.
neuromancer2600 16y ago
I was also pretty disappointed about the reasoning. This blog post sums up what I am thinking: http://bit.ly/dkpQh1 http://bit.ly/dkpQh1 In short: it's both the eco system, the low learning curve, the penetration of the internet, and the ability to gain more insights into what people are doing with your app that native apps will have a hard time competing with.

8 points by rgeorge28 16y ago

Qz 16y ago

Seem like a promo for SproutCore more than anything substantive about the 'death' of desktop applications.

boucher 16y ago
And a pretty misleading one at that. "The iPad team worked with the SproutCore team to provide native hardware acceleration to the JavaScript layer..." Yeah, that couldn't be further from the truth. MobileWebKit has had hardware accelerated 3D transforms since before SproutCore existed. And that's the only part of the entire equation that is hardware accelerated. Plus, you can also do it at the Obj-C level, it's not something unique to MobileWebKit. For many things, JavaScript on these mobile devices is fast enough. But let's not pretend it compares to native app performance. It is, in fact, 50-100x slower. It just turns out that in a lot of cases you don't really need that speed (which is true in lots of environments -- look at ruby).

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

demallien 16y ago

Yeah, no. There is not one single example of an application which has both a webapp version and a desktop version, where I prefer the webapp version. Not one. The closet I could come to that was preferring the real Facebook site to their iPhone app. But even there, on the iPhone, I prefer the app to the website.

krschultz 16y ago

So he picks two examples where they implemented hardware acceleration for web apps on a single device as an example where web apps are superior, and extropates that to desktop apps are dieing. Desktop utility and shareware apps are dieing. Why use a TO-DO list on your computer when there is remember the milk? Email I can see a good reason for it being in the cloud. Is Photoshop going to be replaced? AutoCAD? 3D Studio? Even MS Office? No.

jheriko 16y ago

Its a shame the article is so lacking in content... this is an interesting subject.

neuromancer2600 16y ago

I was also pretty disappointed about the reasoning. This blog post sums up what I am thinking: http://bit.ly/dkpQh1 http://bit.ly/dkpQh1 In short: it's both the eco system, the low learning curve, the penetration of the internet, and the ability to gain more insights into what people are doing with your app that native apps will have a hard time competing with.