4 ms·

With both Mac and now Windows supporting these mobile-forced-to-desktop apps, I worry a bit about the poor UIs in our future. On the one hand, maybe tablets wi

With both Mac and now Windows supporting these mobile-forced-to-desktop apps, I worry a bit about the poor UIs in our future. On the one hand, maybe tablets will improve a bit because mobile apps will have even more incentive to spruce up their large-screen experiences. On the other hand, literally every app I have seen auto-ported to desktop in this way has been awkward at best. Usually at least a few standard platform things just don’t work, like universal keyboard navigation. Having mobile UIs appear unaltered on the desktop is just jarring, at the very least requiring unnecessary scrolling and controls that do not resemble anything else. And I am not convinced that this will improve with time; on the Mac side some of these pseudo-apps have had years to get better but they are still packed full of UI quirks.

f6v 5y ago
> With both Mac and now Windows supporting these mobile-forced-to-desktop apps, I worry a bit about the poor UIs in our future. The operating systems aren't the only ones to blame here. Haven't you seen desktop sites using hamburger menu? That abomination came to life thanks to mobile web.
- topicseed 5y ago
  Thanks to the paradigm "write once, publish everywhere". As a publisher who recently redesigned one of our websites, using the hamburger menu across devices and screen sizes was strongly considered. It is very annoying on larger screens but these represent such a small traffic share that it is what it is... We still did not go ahead with that, but it was close...
  - judge2020 5y ago
    Did you have/do market research or A/B testing on this? If the minority of your userbase are on desktop, maybe those users came from your mobile app and would be more familiar with the hamburger menu than a custom navbar.
    - topicseed 5y ago
      We didn't do research on this, I mostly decided to keep the regular menu on desktops because I also dislike hamburgers there (due to the extra click). But because the website is mobile-first in its CSS, we can very easily —some day— test this with Optimize for example.
- noizejoy 5y ago
  Just another case of the interests of customers (users) and suppliers (developers) not always aligning. It’s not that different with physical tools. Just ask a left handed guitar player about limited choices and/or awkward usability.
Longhanks 5y ago
I rather have UIKit/Android apps on macOS/Windows than yet another web-bloated electron RAM eater.
- tored 5y ago
  In reality it will be a webview wrapped as android app and then executed on a subsystem on top another subsystem that is a virtual machine. Lets hope that the CPU architecture matches between the app and your machine so no emulation is needed. It’s going to be great.

f6v 5y ago

> With both Mac and now Windows supporting these mobile-forced-to-desktop apps, I worry a bit about the poor UIs in our future. The operating systems aren't the only ones to blame here. Haven't you seen desktop sites using hamburger menu? That abomination came to life thanks to mobile web.

topicseed 5y ago
Thanks to the paradigm "write once, publish everywhere". As a publisher who recently redesigned one of our websites, using the hamburger menu across devices and screen sizes was strongly considered. It is very annoying on larger screens but these represent such a small traffic share that it is what it is... We still did not go ahead with that, but it was close...
- judge2020 5y ago
  Did you have/do market research or A/B testing on this? If the minority of your userbase are on desktop, maybe those users came from your mobile app and would be more familiar with the hamburger menu than a custom navbar.
  - topicseed 5y ago
    We didn't do research on this, I mostly decided to keep the regular menu on desktops because I also dislike hamburgers there (due to the extra click). But because the website is mobile-first in its CSS, we can very easily —some day— test this with Optimize for example.
noizejoy 5y ago
Just another case of the interests of customers (users) and suppliers (developers) not always aligning. It’s not that different with physical tools. Just ask a left handed guitar player about limited choices and/or awkward usability.

Longhanks 5y ago

I rather have UIKit/Android apps on macOS/Windows than yet another web-bloated electron RAM eater.

tored 5y ago
In reality it will be a webview wrapped as android app and then executed on a subsystem on top another subsystem that is a virtual machine. Lets hope that the CPU architecture matches between the app and your machine so no emulation is needed. It’s going to be great.