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Honestly? It's Chrome (and, by extension, Electron) being relatively good as a "native platform" that killed "native apps" on Mac. (And I guess Windows/Linux to

Honestly? It's Chrome (and, by extension, Electron) being relatively good as a "native platform" that killed "native apps" on Mac. (And I guess Windows/Linux too, I don't know.) Ironically Chrome got its start as an Apple WebKit fork, but they invested a lot in it from then. Anyway. People just write it in Electron, or just go for web app directly. It's like Java of yesteryear - "write once, run anywhere, but never good". We can fight it or embrace it, I'm afraid.

Mikeb85 5y ago
This. So much functionality I used to expect in desktop apps is now done in the browser. Any sort of 'office' software for example... Any communication software. Email. And so on. Dev tools and games are literally the only 'native' apps I ever use on the desktop.
criddell 5y ago
Web apps are stagnant too. Personal computing in general has matured and is mostly boring these days.
- shp0ngle 5y ago
  not really though? Look at figma; look at stuff like Miro. Even Google Docs are getting better. Discord came out of nowhere and now owning its space. The one that has stagnated is GMail I guess; I think they have too much legacy stuff that they cannot cut, so it’s hard to innovate.
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    >Look at figma; look at stuff like Miro. Even Google Docs are getting better. It's amazing what they have achieved within that constrained platform but I was using vector graphics tools, image editors, word processors and spreadsheets in the eighties and nineties. Some things have changed of course, a wider range of formats, easier collaboration online but there is nothing fundamentally new about this stuff.
    - stnmtn 5y ago
      Where you able to collaborate in real time, easily share mock ups that are editable with people who care, etc? Yes, of course you could do all these these things in the 80s, but the added features today are far beyond what was possible then
      - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
        I did mention that in the last sentence.
  - criddell 5y ago
    Yeah, those are some of the most exciting things going on in web apps and nobody really cares. Did you read the story yesterday on the demise of Freshmeat[1]? User bloopernova started a great thread on how exciting it was to watch that site for new software. Before that time, in the 70s and 80s, there were clubs where people would meet up to talk about computers and software with each other. A new version of Google Docs is about 1% as amazing as getting Electric Pencil running on your TRS-80 or Syncalc going on your Atari 800. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30586224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30586224
- mackrevinack 5y ago
  grist? airtable? those types of apps just seem like an evolution of spreadsheets

Mikeb85 5y ago

This. So much functionality I used to expect in desktop apps is now done in the browser. Any sort of 'office' software for example... Any communication software. Email. And so on. Dev tools and games are literally the only 'native' apps I ever use on the desktop.

criddell 5y ago

Web apps are stagnant too. Personal computing in general has matured and is mostly boring these days.

shp0ngle 5y ago
not really though? Look at figma; look at stuff like Miro. Even Google Docs are getting better. Discord came out of nowhere and now owning its space. The one that has stagnated is GMail I guess; I think they have too much legacy stuff that they cannot cut, so it’s hard to innovate.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  >Look at figma; look at stuff like Miro. Even Google Docs are getting better. It's amazing what they have achieved within that constrained platform but I was using vector graphics tools, image editors, word processors and spreadsheets in the eighties and nineties. Some things have changed of course, a wider range of formats, easier collaboration online but there is nothing fundamentally new about this stuff.
  - stnmtn 5y ago
    Where you able to collaborate in real time, easily share mock ups that are editable with people who care, etc? Yes, of course you could do all these these things in the 80s, but the added features today are far beyond what was possible then
    - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
      I did mention that in the last sentence.
- criddell 5y ago
  Yeah, those are some of the most exciting things going on in web apps and nobody really cares. Did you read the story yesterday on the demise of Freshmeat[1]? User bloopernova started a great thread on how exciting it was to watch that site for new software. Before that time, in the 70s and 80s, there were clubs where people would meet up to talk about computers and software with each other. A new version of Google Docs is about 1% as amazing as getting Electric Pencil running on your TRS-80 or Syncalc going on your Atari 800. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30586224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30586224
mackrevinack 5y ago
grist? airtable? those types of apps just seem like an evolution of spreadsheets