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Ask HN: Why is it so difficult to find quality Windows apps?

16 points by menshiki 4y ago

I've been trying to find a decent calendar and task manager for my work PC. Anything I've been able to find is either web-based, bloatware, or looks like it's been designed during the Vista era. The only real options are the few cross-platform apps that achieve mediocre performance on all platforms. I feel like one google search would give me at least 10 decent Mac apps in those categories. Are there no quality Windows apps?

orionblastar 4y ago
We went to easier to program with objects and lots of RAM being used, from tight compact code that ran in a minimum amount of RAM and ran fast. Everyone writes bloated code now. XCode and .Net are used. Most people and businesses don't seem to care. We used to write in Assembly and C/C++ in CLI mode that was fast. Before the GUI, command line programs ran faster. Which is why some people like FreeDOS and DOS machines like JRR Martin and his Wordstar word processor.
- kichimi 4y ago
  The 'everyone writes bloated code nowadays' argument is ancient, and those C/C++ applications would have been considered bloated. Your argument comes across as anti progress and pro 'old thing'.
arthurcoudouy 4y ago
I can relate. I've had trouble finding a well-designed screenshot tool for Windows, while Mac users have plenty of options. It seems like most local-first apps are built by indie hackers, who are more likely to use Macs over Windows machines. On the other hand, it seems like startups tend to focus on developing web-based applications for wider distribution.
- thefz 4y ago
  > I've had trouble finding a well-designed screenshot tool for Windows ShareX and greenshot.
- baal80spam 4y ago
  > I've had trouble finding a well-designed screenshot tool for Windows, while Mac users have plenty of options. FWIW, I have a completely reversed experience. On Windows you have multitude of free, "gets the jobs done" tools like the built-in tool, Greenshot, Lightshot, and of course the best one - ShareX. On Mac, I looked and couldn't find anything free. Eventually I settled on Shottr which is decent enough for me.
  - jemmyw 4y ago
    If it's useful to you then why should it be free? I paid for Cleanshot, I use it all the time. If you only want to use it once then sure free, but then you wouldn't worry much about how good it was to use. (edit typo)
    - lelanthran 4y ago
      > If it's useful to you then why should it be free? Because on Windows it is? It's a deterioration in the user experience when you move from a platform that has all the bells and whistles to one where each bell is a paid-for subscription that you have to buy.
      - jemmyw 4y ago
        That someone has made it free on one platform, for whatever reason, it doesn't extends that someone should do that work for free on another. The screenshot tools built in to macos are fairly decent, so you don't need to pay extra to get screenshots and screen recordings.
  - mstipetic 4y ago
    That’s why people develop for mac - customers are willing to pay
  - pragmatick 4y ago
    Have been happy with ShareX for years. Basically everything you could want is covered and it's updated very often.
- TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
  Win + Shift + S
- s9w 4y ago
  [dead]
trinovantes 4y ago
Microsoft keeps reinventing the recommended GUI framework every few years and leaves their documentation in a convoluted mess (win32, WinForms, WPF, WinUI, etc.) I also suspect it's because the demographic of Mac users are generally richer and more likely to pay for software
- sgt 4y ago
  Similar with Android vs iOS. It's tough to be an indie developer on Android as the ecosystem is flooded with terrible apps and clones. In fact, many developers just don't bother any more and build only for iOS. The users are generally willing to pay for quality apps, and that's sadly rarely the case with Android.
  - jemmyw 4y ago
    Which is a real shame because I prefer Android and I'm willing to pay for useful apps.
    - theshrike79 4y ago
      Google shot themselves in the foot by waiting years and years before bringing Play store to different geos. During that time people got used to alternate sources for .apks and they didn't move back. Most likely they converted other people too.
  - secretsatan 4y ago
    The app store is also pretty flooded with crap nowadays, maybe not as bad. I would argue that iOS is easier to develop for if you're prepared to learn Apple's dev tools. The hardware available is locked down so you can more easily design for all cases, and there's a good bunch of core frameworks covering a lot of functionality
    - sgt 4y ago
      Having done both: iOS dev makes you smile (not always though.. Xcode, looking at you). Android development makes you want to scream. Currently busy with a Flutter app. Good compromise and it runs on both but definitely not as good as the ideal native experience.
themodelplumber 4y ago
I also found that didn't like anything in that general application space at all. On any system/OS. I'm currently rolling my own and am using pal, awk, and cron/timers for dropping calendars and event reminders into my journal. My personal theory is that 2D grid calendars themselves are not a good fit for fluid computing in the way it has developed. The best calendars of that sort offer allowances toward a hybrid conceptual/emotional workspace and thus are not especially informationally valuable especially next to list/agenda formats. This is hand-wavvy though because I still think they are valuable digitally here and there. For this reason I'll just offer at a stretch that it may be worth exploring art and design software, particularly if it allows you to do some scripting...no guarantees that will even sound interesting though. When people can't find a thing in a forest of things, that's often a cue that the journey needs to turn inward first, toward e.g. subjective specification
ccouzens 4y ago
What about outlook? I never got on with it, but it's often considered the gold standard for calendar and task manager.
- menshiki 4y ago
  I use Outlook as my mail client on Windows and for that it is alright. I tried using it as my calendar and I am not satisfied with it. The UI looks ancient and it lacks a lot of modern features like natural language input.
- mrwnmonm 4y ago
  Except that ThunderBird renders emails better.
politelemon 4y ago
MS Todo is the best task manager for work I've found in a long time, and for mail calendar you could try Windows Mail which is a lightweight compared to outlook.
- menshiki 4y ago
  I am going to try To Do next. I remember that the Wunderlist team is at least partially behind it. The only downside I can immediately notice is that To Do requires a Microsoft account, which my org doesn't provide.
lelanthran 4y ago
> Are there no quality Windows apps? It's not profitable enough: it takes time to develop and the majority of users claim its outdated the minute you release because it doesn't take 5 seconds to start up, doesn't use up 5x as much as as needed and isn't using whatever the latest craze in design is. I wrote a task management app using Lazarus+C in 2018: starts up in under 30ms, keeps all your data local (with option to sync to a owncloud instance). It was low on features because ... MVP. After critically analysing it, and checking user reactions with a select group of non-techie friends, I just gave up on it (don't even have the sources anymore). All that the non-techie users focused on was the fact that "It looks so primitive, like Windows Seven / Vista". No one cared that they go from double-click on the icon to ready-to-use faster than they could blink. "Instant startup" is a great feature for some, but not the majority. No one cared that, other than (optionally, and manually-initiated) syncing there was never a "busy" icon. "Everything instant" is a feature no one cared about. No one cared that it kept the data private, their details private, etc. In fact, many were surprised when I pointed that out as a feature. No one cared when I pointed out that they could bind a global shortcut key to it so that, even while busy typing in a Word document, or a web-form, they can bring it uo, add a task, and return to the task at hand without ever once needing to hit the mouse. This isn't an important feature for users. They are fully prepared to treat the desktop as a single-application-at-a-time machine. User's don't want features, they want benefits, and one of the most important benefits to users is having the same look-and-feel as all the web apps. Another benefit is having it hosted somewhere that they can easily share with friends. If their friends don't download your app to use locally, then the user using your app can't easily share the usage of the app with friends. A benefit to webapps is that the friction to onboard collaborators is next to nothing - all the user has to do when given a link to a tasklist from a friend is simply click "sign up"[2]. I mean, even you placed form over function, using the end of your second sentence to specify what the look and feel should not be[1]. Does it really matter if the widgets look like older WxWidgets, previous versions of Qt or widgets from Windows Seven? So it's not as if the developers are forcing this onto the users, it's simply that the users voted with their feet. I hate it as much as you do, but you only swim against the tide if you're an actual submarine. [1] And, you specified a look and feel that has no correlation to usability. [2] And that's only if they want to edit it; reading could be account-less.
Krisjohn 4y ago
Do you need to sync between multiple devices and/or platforms?
- menshiki 4y ago
  Not at all. It can be a Windows-only solution that works on a single PC. No need for cloud backups either.
  - ivank 4y ago
    Emacs + org-mode + agenda view
Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
This is one of those things I knew but hadn't really thought about till I read this question. It IS the case that when looking for some software tool you see so much that is web-based, bloatware, or stuff made years ago. There was a time when you'd be spoiled for choice for apps. Need an app to help append pdfs, here's 200. Now, it's 'upload your documents here and we'll append them for you' = don't worry, we're cool. Or here's a tool with an abandoned web page from 2005. My guess is that: - there are fewer people building these PC apps, more people instead buildings apps for mobile - the big well established programs, both commercial and open source get more and more features over time, so there is less need for specialized apps. - people are less trusting of downloaded PC executables built by random people. - google search makes it harder to find them, instead showing you what I assume to be auto-generated pages of lists and other SEO spam - a steady trend of moving away from you having control over your own computer and software towards the centralized models where you basically run a client with only the amount of control they feel like giving you, plus subscription fees, so so many subscription fees.
- menshiki 4y ago
  This is very insightful. Thank you. The future of desktop apps does not look bright at all.
kennydude 4y ago
I've noticed this. Personally I keep seeing Gnome/KDE on Linux keeps getting better and better apps, tempted to switch and give it a go