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If MSFT can make Excel run on my iPhone, then I have a lot of hope. When I can edit a freaking PowerPoint presentation on an iPhone (in a pinch - I wouldn't wa

by MR4D 7y ago

If MSFT can make Excel run on my iPhone, then I have a lot of hope. When I can edit a freaking PowerPoint presentation on an iPhone (in a pinch - I wouldn't want to do it all day), then I have to think it's not only possible, but already done. Email is probably the best example. Every major email app is on multiple platforms, and I'd be very surprised if most of the code is not already the same among platforms except for the UI. So I'd submit that it is a solved problem.

dizzy3gg 7y ago
Microsoft seem to be heavily invested in react native (and possibly election?) as their UI layer.
- dmitriid 7y ago
  You're confusing the technology to create UI with the UI itself.
1123581321 7y ago
I believe you misunderstood. The issue is not whether software can be ported to a touch platform. It is that keyboard/mouse-oriented UI and ergonomics and a touch-oriented UI and ergonomics cannot successfully co-exist. It’s not a programming challenge.
- Reason077 7y ago
  > "keyboard/mouse-oriented UI and ergonomics and a touch-oriented UI and ergonomics cannot successfully co-exist" I'm not sure that's necessarily true. Are you aware of Mac Catalyst? https://developer.apple.com/mac-catalyst/ https://developer.apple.com/mac-catalyst/ (Of course, the user experience will always be somewhat different on a small phone screen compared to a big Mac screen. But that doesn't mean you can't build an app that works well on both from one code base. And certainly an iPad app is not all that different from a Mac app.).
  - 1123581321 7y ago
    Again, you are thinking of porting a touch app to a non-touch device when the issue is that good touch and non-touch UI and ergonomics cannot co-exist on the same device. And I am familiar with Catalyst. I think Catalyst is a good example of how software suffers in a K/M-oriented environment when it came from a touch environment without many modifications. Even the Apple-developed apps have too many controls and views designed for tactile screens. The Catalyst development team is introducing UI elements that make more sense in macOS, like a compact calendar picker to replace the touch-style picker wheel, but it’s going to take a long time before a Catalyst app lets a developer quickly make a macOS version that feels designed for macOS, and again, there is a need for that native macOS feel because quality touch UI interfaces are slow and difficult to use on a laptop or desktop.
    - melling 7y ago
      Well, let’s use our imagination... ... and hope that Apple reinvents user input on mobile. A little Soli for advanced gestures: https://atap.google.com/soli/ https://atap.google.com/soli/ A selfie keyboard? https://www.cnet.com/news/samsungs-selfietype-creates-a-magic-invisible-keyboard-for-your-phone/ https://www.cnet.com/news/samsungs-selfietype-creates-a-magi... Better voice commands. For example, why can’t I say “build app” “Rename function foo to bar“
      - 1123581321 7y ago
        Voice certainly seems like a viable solution to some of that. In some ways it’s imminent if the accessibility improvements pushed to iOS, iPadOS and macOS are advanced just a bit further. However, we should also expect to see PC use pushed into more advanced and specialized territory on our most powerful and versatile devices as phones and tablets assume more traditional PC work. That specialized use will advance as fast as the most attuned interface for that platform (keyboard+mouse) and the others will necessarily lag behind.
      - dmitriid 7y ago
        All of this won't solve the mobile/desktop dichotomy. I rename things dozens of times a day. Saying "rename function A to B" dozens of times a day is unviable on desktop and is nearly unusable on the phone. And this is a fundamentally different UI.
- MR4D 7y ago
  Please explain how email fits your mode but fails mine. Sorry, but I’m missing something in you comment.
  - 1123581321 7y ago
    Basically, it’s really hard to actually develop totally separate UIs in the same app, e.g. another user brought up the Catalyst project, which is bringing poor-fit touch paradigms into macOS despite the developers’ intentions in many cases. One paradigm will be dominant. Care must also be taken to not load too many unused resources. Interactive workflows also differ between UIs. Since so much of an OS is the native UI and the first-party applications, even if the mobile, tablet and PC versions of an OS share some libraries, they can’t really share enough to meaningfully call them one OS without compromising the experience on all three. So while there may be three pane email on the iPad as well as Mac, and email on iOS, they don’t really share enough to be called the same app, and if they did, at least one of them would suffer. And some of the interactions on the macOS version effectively can’t be brought over.
xattt 7y ago
There’s still an unsolved problem related to desktop publishing and that’s writing a document with a citations from an EndNote or Zotero database. I included EndNote only because there’s deep integration in Pages.

by MR4D 7y ago

dizzy3gg 7y ago

Microsoft seem to be heavily invested in react native (and possibly election?) as their UI layer.

dmitriid 7y ago
You're confusing the technology to create UI with the UI itself.

1123581321 7y ago

I believe you misunderstood. The issue is not whether software can be ported to a touch platform. It is that keyboard/mouse-oriented UI and ergonomics and a touch-oriented UI and ergonomics cannot successfully co-exist. It’s not a programming challenge.

Reason077 7y ago
> "keyboard/mouse-oriented UI and ergonomics and a touch-oriented UI and ergonomics cannot successfully co-exist" I'm not sure that's necessarily true. Are you aware of Mac Catalyst? https://developer.apple.com/mac-catalyst/ https://developer.apple.com/mac-catalyst/ (Of course, the user experience will always be somewhat different on a small phone screen compared to a big Mac screen. But that doesn't mean you can't build an app that works well on both from one code base. And certainly an iPad app is not all that different from a Mac app.).
- 1123581321 7y ago
  Again, you are thinking of porting a touch app to a non-touch device when the issue is that good touch and non-touch UI and ergonomics cannot co-exist on the same device. And I am familiar with Catalyst. I think Catalyst is a good example of how software suffers in a K/M-oriented environment when it came from a touch environment without many modifications. Even the Apple-developed apps have too many controls and views designed for tactile screens. The Catalyst development team is introducing UI elements that make more sense in macOS, like a compact calendar picker to replace the touch-style picker wheel, but it’s going to take a long time before a Catalyst app lets a developer quickly make a macOS version that feels designed for macOS, and again, there is a need for that native macOS feel because quality touch UI interfaces are slow and difficult to use on a laptop or desktop.
  - melling 7y ago
    Well, let’s use our imagination... ... and hope that Apple reinvents user input on mobile. A little Soli for advanced gestures: https://atap.google.com/soli/ https://atap.google.com/soli/ A selfie keyboard? https://www.cnet.com/news/samsungs-selfietype-creates-a-magic-invisible-keyboard-for-your-phone/ https://www.cnet.com/news/samsungs-selfietype-creates-a-magi... Better voice commands. For example, why can’t I say “build app” “Rename function foo to bar“
    - 1123581321 7y ago
      Voice certainly seems like a viable solution to some of that. In some ways it’s imminent if the accessibility improvements pushed to iOS, iPadOS and macOS are advanced just a bit further. However, we should also expect to see PC use pushed into more advanced and specialized territory on our most powerful and versatile devices as phones and tablets assume more traditional PC work. That specialized use will advance as fast as the most attuned interface for that platform (keyboard+mouse) and the others will necessarily lag behind.
    - dmitriid 7y ago
      All of this won't solve the mobile/desktop dichotomy. I rename things dozens of times a day. Saying "rename function A to B" dozens of times a day is unviable on desktop and is nearly unusable on the phone. And this is a fundamentally different UI.
MR4D 7y ago
Please explain how email fits your mode but fails mine. Sorry, but I’m missing something in you comment.
- 1123581321 7y ago
  Basically, it’s really hard to actually develop totally separate UIs in the same app, e.g. another user brought up the Catalyst project, which is bringing poor-fit touch paradigms into macOS despite the developers’ intentions in many cases. One paradigm will be dominant. Care must also be taken to not load too many unused resources. Interactive workflows also differ between UIs. Since so much of an OS is the native UI and the first-party applications, even if the mobile, tablet and PC versions of an OS share some libraries, they can’t really share enough to meaningfully call them one OS without compromising the experience on all three. So while there may be three pane email on the iPad as well as Mac, and email on iOS, they don’t really share enough to be called the same app, and if they did, at least one of them would suffer. And some of the interactions on the macOS version effectively can’t be brought over.

xattt 7y ago

There’s still an unsolved problem related to desktop publishing and that’s writing a document with a citations from an EndNote or Zotero database. I included EndNote only because there’s deep integration in Pages.