5 ms·

A few outliers? The mobile market share is about 50:50 iOS vs. Android (at least in North America).

by mthoms 5y ago

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
But mobile is an outlier use case for a whole lot of things you might make software for. What's the mobile market for CAD software? High-end photo editing or audio work? Programming?
- mthoms 5y ago
  And desktop is an outlier use case for lots of things. What point are you making?
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    I don't disagree. I'm saying stop caring so much about achieving some 'universal' and just focus on the most important platform(s) for what your application does, and make your application fit those platforms as best it can.
    - robbrown451 5y ago
      Your advice seems targeted at app developers, and for that, maybe it is good advice. (depends on the product, really. Way back in 1996 Hotmail proved that web based apps could compete with native apps, for email apps anyway) But this discussion is not about what app developers should do today, given the current state of browsers. It is about whether the browser makers should support enhanced capabilities. This is different. If the browser makers did support more, of course, your advice would become even less likely to be good advice, since you could make it "fit those platforms" just as well. I mean, maybe you feel that an email apps that runs on a web page is somehow lesser than one that runs natively. Like, you have to go to a bookmark rather than click an icon, so that is going to feel out of place. I say people have gotten used to that a long time ago. Now it is just a matter of supporting all the things they might expect in the app.
      - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
        > I mean, maybe you feel that an email apps that runs on a web page is somehow lesser than one that runs natively. I do, and I think this is obvious to anyone who has spent time using both. > Like, you have to go to a bookmark rather than click an icon, so that is going to feel out of place. It's much deeper than that. Native applications using native widgets integrate much better with the way the OS works. You can notice this in the little things like how windows behave, how drag and drop works, notifications, task management, system tray usage, etc. > I say people have gotten used to that a long time ago. I think that's a terrible metric. People have gotten used to having shitty local monopoly ISPs too, it doesn't mean that's the way we should be doing things.
        robbrown451 5y ago
        Maybe you can clarify what kind of app you are speaking of. I'm using Hacker News at the moment, which is a web app. I am typing into a text area, and in a moment, will press the reply button. I'm not feeing this "lack of integration" you speak of. I don't see how this could be improved if it was in a Windows app, and that reply button was coded using the Win32 API as opposed to being made in HTML, styled in CSS, and given interactivity with JavaScript. Oh, you mean some other kind of app? What kind? Which apps should be native and which are ok to be web apps? Even if we restrict the discussion to the desktop (so mac, windows and linux native, vs running in a web browser), do you think that, say, YouTube would be better as a native app vs the web app that I currently use it as? I use the Google's "messages for web" app that allows me to send and receive SMS messages via an app in a web browser. Drag and drop works as expected. And so on. How would it be better if it was a native Windows app? I also use apps like Gimp and Inkscape, which are technically native but are horrible (because they are trying to be cross platform). And I use a native video editing app called ScreenFlow, which works great on a Mac. But now that my main machine is Windows, it is a huge pain in the ass to use because I have to get out my aging Mac and transfer large files to it. I use Visual Studio Code. It is built on web technologies (i.e. electron, but it also can run right in a web browser over the web), and is every bit as slick the competing single-OS native app I recently abandoned for text editing (BBEdit). In every case I am either using apps that are web based (or at least web-browser-engine based), or I am suffering from the downsides of apps that are not.
- robbrown451 5y ago
  Yeah and I actually develop CAD software. I worked on stuff in the 90s that ran on multiple platforms, then they gave up on that and went all windows, which sucked. Now (rejoining the same company 23 years later) the new initiative is all web based (and yes it does run on mobile, which makes plenty of sense for a lot of the market which isn't design per se but is typically used on site). The web version is damn impressive, btw. But again, it sucks having to decide between mac and windows, or having a whole ton of effort going into supporting both. (and linux is lowest priority)

A few outliers? The mobile market share is about 50:50 iOS vs. Android (at least in North America).

by mthoms 5y ago

A few outliers? The mobile market share is about 50:50 iOS vs. Android (at least in North America).

But mobile is an outlier use case for a whole lot of things you might make software for. What's the mobile market for CAD software? High-end photo editing or audio work? Programming?

mthoms 5y ago
And desktop is an outlier use case for lots of things. What point are you making?
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  I don't disagree. I'm saying stop caring so much about achieving some 'universal' and just focus on the most important platform(s) for what your application does, and make your application fit those platforms as best it can.
  - robbrown451 5y ago
    Your advice seems targeted at app developers, and for that, maybe it is good advice. (depends on the product, really. Way back in 1996 Hotmail proved that web based apps could compete with native apps, for email apps anyway) But this discussion is not about what app developers should do today, given the current state of browsers. It is about whether the browser makers should support enhanced capabilities. This is different. If the browser makers did support more, of course, your advice would become even less likely to be good advice, since you could make it "fit those platforms" just as well. I mean, maybe you feel that an email apps that runs on a web page is somehow lesser than one that runs natively. Like, you have to go to a bookmark rather than click an icon, so that is going to feel out of place. I say people have gotten used to that a long time ago. Now it is just a matter of supporting all the things they might expect in the app.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
      > I mean, maybe you feel that an email apps that runs on a web page is somehow lesser than one that runs natively. I do, and I think this is obvious to anyone who has spent time using both. > Like, you have to go to a bookmark rather than click an icon, so that is going to feel out of place. It's much deeper than that. Native applications using native widgets integrate much better with the way the OS works. You can notice this in the little things like how windows behave, how drag and drop works, notifications, task management, system tray usage, etc. > I say people have gotten used to that a long time ago. I think that's a terrible metric. People have gotten used to having shitty local monopoly ISPs too, it doesn't mean that's the way we should be doing things.
      - robbrown451 5y ago
        Maybe you can clarify what kind of app you are speaking of. I'm using Hacker News at the moment, which is a web app. I am typing into a text area, and in a moment, will press the reply button. I'm not feeing this "lack of integration" you speak of. I don't see how this could be improved if it was in a Windows app, and that reply button was coded using the Win32 API as opposed to being made in HTML, styled in CSS, and given interactivity with JavaScript. Oh, you mean some other kind of app? What kind? Which apps should be native and which are ok to be web apps? Even if we restrict the discussion to the desktop (so mac, windows and linux native, vs running in a web browser), do you think that, say, YouTube would be better as a native app vs the web app that I currently use it as? I use the Google's "messages for web" app that allows me to send and receive SMS messages via an app in a web browser. Drag and drop works as expected. And so on. How would it be better if it was a native Windows app? I also use apps like Gimp and Inkscape, which are technically native but are horrible (because they are trying to be cross platform). And I use a native video editing app called ScreenFlow, which works great on a Mac. But now that my main machine is Windows, it is a huge pain in the ass to use because I have to get out my aging Mac and transfer large files to it. I use Visual Studio Code. It is built on web technologies (i.e. electron, but it also can run right in a web browser over the web), and is every bit as slick the competing single-OS native app I recently abandoned for text editing (BBEdit). In every case I am either using apps that are web based (or at least web-browser-engine based), or I am suffering from the downsides of apps that are not.
robbrown451 5y ago
Yeah and I actually develop CAD software. I worked on stuff in the 90s that ran on multiple platforms, then they gave up on that and went all windows, which sucked. Now (rejoining the same company 23 years later) the new initiative is all web based (and yes it does run on mobile, which makes plenty of sense for a lot of the market which isn't design per se but is typically used on site). The web version is damn impressive, btw. But again, it sucks having to decide between mac and windows, or having a whole ton of effort going into supporting both. (and linux is lowest priority)