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Believe it or not, around the turn of the century there were many thick client apps. But back then it was a challenge to ship and update these applications. Thi

Believe it or not, around the turn of the century there were many thick client apps. But back then it was a challenge to ship and update these applications. This pain, along with the continued rollout of broadband led many to advocate for creating applications that would run in a web browser while being controlled on centralized servers. In practice, turning the platform that was designed to render markup text into an application host. This would allow applications to be shipped and updated with little interaction from the user. However, right about the same time web apps were taking over the world there were thick client apps that were solving the problems of installation and and updates. Two of the prominent thick client applications doing this were iTunes and the browsers themselves. Now fast forward a decade to the early teens and the ubiquitous use of smart phones. What is the single largest determining factor of platform success? Is it the ability for web apps to render on your platform's web browser or is it the breadth and depth of your platform's app store? My rant is over, I wish web apps would die. I've wished that for most of the 21st century.

mikehollinger 5y ago
> Now fast forward a decade to the early teens and the ubiquitous use of smart phones. An interesting thing happened here as well - because of the iOS app store and its auto-update policy, "thick" clients came back in vogue again. It just happened that they're running on phones, not full PCs. I'd argue these count as thick client apps. :-) Consider WhatsApp or WeChat - it has a complete and full ecosystem of messaging, apps, and utility function. It actually (I think) supercedes AOL 2 or 3 in terms of functionality. There's DMs, Chat, Apps...
redsparrow 5y ago
This is an interesting observation. I hadn't noticed this dynamic before; thanks for sharing. The current differences in attitudes between mobile and non-mobile apps is pretty interesting. If you visit Reddit or Twitter from a browser that's running on a mobile OS then they make it extremely clear that they would prefer that you use a dedicated app. When visiting from a non-mobile OS not only do you not see such messages, but a dedicated app doesn't even exist. In one place the browser is good enough to be the only option, in the other it's so inferior that they will bully and harass you until you stop using it.
- posix86 5y ago
  True. That's actual a market gap! Build a mobile browser so good it can replace apps.

mikehollinger 5y ago

> Now fast forward a decade to the early teens and the ubiquitous use of smart phones. An interesting thing happened here as well - because of the iOS app store and its auto-update policy, "thick" clients came back in vogue again. It just happened that they're running on phones, not full PCs. I'd argue these count as thick client apps. :-) Consider WhatsApp or WeChat - it has a complete and full ecosystem of messaging, apps, and utility function. It actually (I think) supercedes AOL 2 or 3 in terms of functionality. There's DMs, Chat, Apps...

redsparrow 5y ago

This is an interesting observation. I hadn't noticed this dynamic before; thanks for sharing. The current differences in attitudes between mobile and non-mobile apps is pretty interesting. If you visit Reddit or Twitter from a browser that's running on a mobile OS then they make it extremely clear that they would prefer that you use a dedicated app. When visiting from a non-mobile OS not only do you not see such messages, but a dedicated app doesn't even exist. In one place the browser is good enough to be the only option, in the other it's so inferior that they will bully and harass you until you stop using it.

posix86 5y ago
True. That's actual a market gap! Build a mobile browser so good it can replace apps.