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"The web started to get more suitable for apps probably since Gmail in 2004. It’s very convenient, yet still very limited and has shortcomings." Yes. I worked

"The web started to get more suitable for apps probably since Gmail in 2004. It’s very convenient, yet still very limited and has shortcomings." Yes. I worked for over a decade to make web apps behave more like native apps. I finally realized it was a fruitless endeavor. The browser and the web are amazing but, trying to make them behave like native apps just doesn't offer the same experience and, in most cases, offers a worse experience. All one need as proof are all the Electron apps or the Apple Music desktop app.

brundolf 5y ago
What? The Apple Music desktop app is native, built with Catalyst (and is awful despite that)
- dboreham 5y ago
  Perhaps Amazon Music app?
- askonomm 5y ago
  Native and yet still sucks. Most catalyst apps suck.
- Zelphyr 5y ago
  If I'm wrong I'll stand corrected but, it behaves way too much like a web app to not at least be making heavy use of WKWebView.
  - brundolf 5y ago
    What does "behaves too much like a web app" even mean in this context?
    - jdminhbg 5y ago
      If you go to something like the For You screen, you will see a pause while the content is loaded remotely. And if you hit Command-R, it will reload, like a web page. I think the other commenters are right that Music.app is written as a native macOS app, but it definitely leans heavily on web views for content, especially in the streaming parts of the app.
    - dmitriid 5y ago
      Like it's broken beyond all recognition and hope with all interactions and expectations of a native app just gone. See this review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE8ZikfrpFU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE8ZikfrpFU
- marcellus23 5y ago
  It is not built with Catalyst. Podcasts is, but Music is not. And presumably he's referring to the webview-based parts of Apple Music, i.e. the browsing piece of it. The native parts of the app (library browsing and management) work very well in my experience.
flohofwoe 5y ago
And yet Visual Studio Code is doing quite well for a "slow and bloaty" Electron app. It starts many times faster, and in many areas (not all) also feels snappier than both Xcode and Visual Studio (and being an IDE versus "just a text editor" isn't an excuse, VSCode can be turned into a full blown IDE with a few extensions).
- Scarbutt 5y ago
  VSCode is the exception not the rule. It's an exception because it has a large engineering team behind it doing thousands of micro-optimizations.
- ducktective 5y ago
  That is pretty much the definition of exception in this space. Also consider the vast number of man-hours MS has put into VSCode (+LSP+DA)
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- eyelidlessness 5y ago
  I think a more appropriate comparison for VSCode would be Nova, which is angling for roughly the same IDE-capable editor space. And uses some of the same technologies (LSP, TextMate themes) I’m not at my desk so I can’t compare at the moment, but I remember Nova feeling vastly more responsive and quite a bit faster from launch to usable. And VSCode performance (especially launch) degrades significantly once you have several workspaces open at once. I’ve learned to dread upgrade launches because the release notes tab amplifies that degraded performance even more (which is baffling because that’s just one more web thing in the same web context right?!). Don’t get me wrong, I love VSCode, and it’s worlds better than most other Electron apps I have to use. I even went back to it from Nova because it better supports my workflow. But it is definitely slower than it could be if it were native.
- kaba0 5y ago
  And is it still as performant with all those extensions that make it remotely close to a full blown IDE? Because as far as I know they can make it slow to a crawl.

brundolf 5y ago

What? The Apple Music desktop app is native, built with Catalyst (and is awful despite that)

dboreham 5y ago
Perhaps Amazon Music app?
askonomm 5y ago
Native and yet still sucks. Most catalyst apps suck.
Zelphyr 5y ago
If I'm wrong I'll stand corrected but, it behaves way too much like a web app to not at least be making heavy use of WKWebView.
- brundolf 5y ago
  What does "behaves too much like a web app" even mean in this context?
  - jdminhbg 5y ago
    If you go to something like the For You screen, you will see a pause while the content is loaded remotely. And if you hit Command-R, it will reload, like a web page. I think the other commenters are right that Music.app is written as a native macOS app, but it definitely leans heavily on web views for content, especially in the streaming parts of the app.
  - dmitriid 5y ago
    Like it's broken beyond all recognition and hope with all interactions and expectations of a native app just gone. See this review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE8ZikfrpFU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE8ZikfrpFU
marcellus23 5y ago
It is not built with Catalyst. Podcasts is, but Music is not. And presumably he's referring to the webview-based parts of Apple Music, i.e. the browsing piece of it. The native parts of the app (library browsing and management) work very well in my experience.

flohofwoe 5y ago

And yet Visual Studio Code is doing quite well for a "slow and bloaty" Electron app. It starts many times faster, and in many areas (not all) also feels snappier than both Xcode and Visual Studio (and being an IDE versus "just a text editor" isn't an excuse, VSCode can be turned into a full blown IDE with a few extensions).

Scarbutt 5y ago
VSCode is the exception not the rule. It's an exception because it has a large engineering team behind it doing thousands of micro-optimizations.
ducktective 5y ago
That is pretty much the definition of exception in this space. Also consider the vast number of man-hours MS has put into VSCode (+LSP+DA)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
eyelidlessness 5y ago
I think a more appropriate comparison for VSCode would be Nova, which is angling for roughly the same IDE-capable editor space. And uses some of the same technologies (LSP, TextMate themes) I’m not at my desk so I can’t compare at the moment, but I remember Nova feeling vastly more responsive and quite a bit faster from launch to usable. And VSCode performance (especially launch) degrades significantly once you have several workspaces open at once. I’ve learned to dread upgrade launches because the release notes tab amplifies that degraded performance even more (which is baffling because that’s just one more web thing in the same web context right?!). Don’t get me wrong, I love VSCode, and it’s worlds better than most other Electron apps I have to use. I even went back to it from Nova because it better supports my workflow. But it is definitely slower than it could be if it were native.
kaba0 5y ago
And is it still as performant with all those extensions that make it remotely close to a full blown IDE? Because as far as I know they can make it slow to a crawl.