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That ship has long since sailed. The web is the preferred framework for creating "non-native" (maybe nomadic? colonizer? invasive?) apps that largely ignore the

by Spivak 3y ago

That ship has long since sailed. The web is the preferred framework for creating "non-native" (maybe nomadic? colonizer? invasive?) apps that largely ignore their host platform in favor of being the same everywhere. For better and worse this is what developers and designers have always wanted out of portability.

mostlylurks 3y ago
It's also what I, as a user, want. I don't want some middle-man corporate "platform" (of which there are very few to actually select from to suit your personal tastes) inserting their vision of what UIs should look like into interactions between me and the service I'm connecting to. I want my platform to be as invisible as possible and interchangeable with other platforms. The more things stay the same when switching between platforms, the better.
- AlexandrB 3y ago
  I want the complete opposite. Most 3rd party developers absolutely suck at UX compared to Apple or even Microsoft. Look at this HP monstrosity, for example: https://i.pcmag.com/imagery/articles/07LJBKFE51UG5cHJPEojwn9-6..v1627596551.png https://i.pcmag.com/imagery/articles/07LJBKFE51UG5cHJPEojwn9... It's also a lot easier to learn the 2-4 dominant UX paradigms of the dominant platforms than the hundreds we have now with everyone doing their own thing. Doing remote tech support for elderly relatives is hell when you can't even rely on a menu bar being present/useful.
- zzo38computer 3y ago
  Well, it is there if that is what you want. But, not everyone wants such a thing like that, and you should not expect everyone to want that, please.
jakub_g 3y ago
This is mostly a question of costs & availability of developers. There's simply not enough native developers on the market, and the good ones can ask very high salaries. Hiring N teams of M developers for N native apps, compared to hiring K<<M web developers is way more expensive, difficult, and slow.
zzo38computer 3y ago
This is a rather bad way of making portability. It is bad for accessibility (even though they tried to add things to improve accessibility, it does not work very well), for working on multiple types of computers (since, then the software specific to that computer cannot do so by itself, and instead needs to use the specification of the received file, which is probably wrong anyways), and for many types of features that may be helpful but that are unavailable or are not designed or implemented well. Furthermore, WWW is also, not work well with multiple programs and with user customization very well, pipes, etc. And, it is complicated to implement and does not run efficiently. And, there are many security issues, having to be made more complicated just to avoid some of them, in ways that would not be necessary if it were designed properly. And, anyways, it cannot be the same everywhere, even if they want it to be.
marcosdumay 3y ago
> maybe nomadic? colonizer? invasive? Blinkenlights output forever! Or seriously, working on software ecosystem preservation just to preserve it it is absurd. Things get replaced because people want, and at this point you are just trying to force people to use things they against their wishes.
cageface 3y ago
It doesn't help that Microsoft and Apple have neglected their native desktop UI toolkits for so long. Writing a native Mac app and a native Windows app and possibly two native mobile apps and maybe a Linux app is just not feasible for most companies.
- JimDabell 3y ago
  > It doesn't help that Microsoft and Apple have neglected their native desktop UI toolkits for so long. Apple launched SwiftUI fairly recently and it seems to be being developed at a fairly fast pace.

by Spivak 3y ago

mostlylurks 3y ago

It's also what I, as a user, want. I don't want some middle-man corporate "platform" (of which there are very few to actually select from to suit your personal tastes) inserting their vision of what UIs should look like into interactions between me and the service I'm connecting to. I want my platform to be as invisible as possible and interchangeable with other platforms. The more things stay the same when switching between platforms, the better.

AlexandrB 3y ago
I want the complete opposite. Most 3rd party developers absolutely suck at UX compared to Apple or even Microsoft. Look at this HP monstrosity, for example: https://i.pcmag.com/imagery/articles/07LJBKFE51UG5cHJPEojwn9-6..v1627596551.png https://i.pcmag.com/imagery/articles/07LJBKFE51UG5cHJPEojwn9... It's also a lot easier to learn the 2-4 dominant UX paradigms of the dominant platforms than the hundreds we have now with everyone doing their own thing. Doing remote tech support for elderly relatives is hell when you can't even rely on a menu bar being present/useful.
zzo38computer 3y ago
Well, it is there if that is what you want. But, not everyone wants such a thing like that, and you should not expect everyone to want that, please.

jakub_g 3y ago

This is mostly a question of costs & availability of developers. There's simply not enough native developers on the market, and the good ones can ask very high salaries. Hiring N teams of M developers for N native apps, compared to hiring K<<M web developers is way more expensive, difficult, and slow.

zzo38computer 3y ago

This is a rather bad way of making portability. It is bad for accessibility (even though they tried to add things to improve accessibility, it does not work very well), for working on multiple types of computers (since, then the software specific to that computer cannot do so by itself, and instead needs to use the specification of the received file, which is probably wrong anyways), and for many types of features that may be helpful but that are unavailable or are not designed or implemented well. Furthermore, WWW is also, not work well with multiple programs and with user customization very well, pipes, etc. And, it is complicated to implement and does not run efficiently. And, there are many security issues, having to be made more complicated just to avoid some of them, in ways that would not be necessary if it were designed properly. And, anyways, it cannot be the same everywhere, even if they want it to be.

marcosdumay 3y ago

> maybe nomadic? colonizer? invasive? Blinkenlights output forever! Or seriously, working on software ecosystem preservation just to preserve it it is absurd. Things get replaced because people want, and at this point you are just trying to force people to use things they against their wishes.

cageface 3y ago

It doesn't help that Microsoft and Apple have neglected their native desktop UI toolkits for so long. Writing a native Mac app and a native Windows app and possibly two native mobile apps and maybe a Linux app is just not feasible for most companies.

JimDabell 3y ago
> It doesn't help that Microsoft and Apple have neglected their native desktop UI toolkits for so long. Apple launched SwiftUI fairly recently and it seems to be being developed at a fairly fast pace.