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> That wouldn't give you Google maps, docs or gmail So, it wouldn't have given you three of the most important and useful applications in the modern world, use

> That wouldn't give you Google maps, docs or gmail So, it wouldn't have given you three of the most important and useful applications in the modern world, used every day by millions of people.

jacquesm 9y ago
No, it would not have given you those on the web. You could have simply made applications that do the same thing. Gmail could have been made to work (on the web) by the way, just not with such a spiffy interface, and maps probably as well.
- oblio 9y ago
  > just not with such a spiffy interface What makes you think that's not the main selling point of those applications? "Except for that one thing that normal people care about, my sticks-and-stones are just as good!" :)
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    Works in a secure and predictable way without eye candy to me trumps works in an insecure way but has eye candy. Software was plenty usable before we had the CPU power to burn on 'pretty'. In fact, in many ways it was more usable. To some extent hardware has outpaced our ability to do useful things with the cycles and transistor budgets available. So we've become super wasteful and our software is now mostly immature. If instead clock cycles had doubled every decade or two and ditto with the transistor count we probably would have had a much more mature software eco system as a result, rather than a bunch of pretty junk with plenty of that pretty junk as a service rather than as an application that you control and all the security headaches that come with that.
- always_good 9y ago
  The web has shown us that people don't want to download an app for everything.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    It's more complicated than that. The web is being run by companies that would rather sell you a service than a one time install. Hence the feeling that in 9 out of 10 of those cases the only reason the product only works 'online' is to serve its creators, there is no added value for you the consumer. I've got a 5 year old 'TomTom', a simple and dedicated navigation device. It beats the pants of all the connected versions out there because it simply always works. I didn't download anything for it, you just switch it on, it takes about 30 seconds to find its bearings (longer in urban canyons) and then you tell it where to go, with pretty much all of Europe covered. User interface is a dream compared to mobile phones and most other in-car navigation systems. Turn-by-turn voice navigation works and works well. No online service even comes close for that application. So, whatever the web has shown is that people don't want, at least speaking for myself you can keep your services and give me that download.
pdkl95 9y ago
Word processors and email clients existed before the web was created.
- oblio 9y ago
  And especially for email clients, they sucked. You know why? Cause I couldn't check my email anywhere. With mobile devices this is less of an issue. But even with those, often I want to access an account I don't have (or don't even want to have) configured on my phone/tablet. And guess what, nothing beats the convenience of the web's 0-install in those cases.

> That wouldn't give you Google maps, docs or gmail So, it wouldn't have given you three of the most important and useful applications in the modern world, used every day by millions of people.

jacquesm 9y ago

No, it would not have given you those on the web. You could have simply made applications that do the same thing. Gmail could have been made to work (on the web) by the way, just not with such a spiffy interface, and maps probably as well.

oblio 9y ago
> just not with such a spiffy interface What makes you think that's not the main selling point of those applications? "Except for that one thing that normal people care about, my sticks-and-stones are just as good!" :)
- jacquesm 9y ago
  Works in a secure and predictable way without eye candy to me trumps works in an insecure way but has eye candy. Software was plenty usable before we had the CPU power to burn on 'pretty'. In fact, in many ways it was more usable. To some extent hardware has outpaced our ability to do useful things with the cycles and transistor budgets available. So we've become super wasteful and our software is now mostly immature. If instead clock cycles had doubled every decade or two and ditto with the transistor count we probably would have had a much more mature software eco system as a result, rather than a bunch of pretty junk with plenty of that pretty junk as a service rather than as an application that you control and all the security headaches that come with that.
always_good 9y ago
The web has shown us that people don't want to download an app for everything.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  It's more complicated than that. The web is being run by companies that would rather sell you a service than a one time install. Hence the feeling that in 9 out of 10 of those cases the only reason the product only works 'online' is to serve its creators, there is no added value for you the consumer. I've got a 5 year old 'TomTom', a simple and dedicated navigation device. It beats the pants of all the connected versions out there because it simply always works. I didn't download anything for it, you just switch it on, it takes about 30 seconds to find its bearings (longer in urban canyons) and then you tell it where to go, with pretty much all of Europe covered. User interface is a dream compared to mobile phones and most other in-car navigation systems. Turn-by-turn voice navigation works and works well. No online service even comes close for that application. So, whatever the web has shown is that people don't want, at least speaking for myself you can keep your services and give me that download.

pdkl95 9y ago

Word processors and email clients existed before the web was created.

oblio 9y ago
And especially for email clients, they sucked. You know why? Cause I couldn't check my email anywhere. With mobile devices this is less of an issue. But even with those, often I want to access an account I don't have (or don't even want to have) configured on my phone/tablet. And guess what, nothing beats the convenience of the web's 0-install in those cases.