These articles always end up discussing the UI api. After having been in the shrinkwrapped industry since DOS, and thanks to MSFT using the UI as a cheap gimmic

These articles always end up discussing the UI api. After having been in the shrinkwrapped industry since DOS, and thanks to MSFT using the UI as a cheap gimmick to keep programmers hooked, I can tell you from experience that the latest and greatest UI controls now yield diminishing returns that de-sparkle in about two weeks of heavy use. Apple is finally getting some market traction, but MSFT has already devalued the UI angle badly enough that Apple can't be guaranteed that users will see Cocoa as superior to whatever MSFT has already pissed on. My takeaway from this experience is the following: 0) Computing is becoming a necessary part of modern daily life, which is a lot more compressed than it was at the introduction of the pc. There's nothing novel about having a computer sitting on your desk. 1) Single commercial vendor control of UI standards is bad. 2) Other metrics, such as reliability, user flow, convenience, and by ext good use of user's time are of more enduring importance than cool looking UI controls. 3) HTML w/js is increasingly good enough, until something else much better grows out of that experience.