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There are apps that act native on multiple platforms, like IntelliJ. But those are rare. Most cross-platform apps feel “out of place” on every platform except
by armchairhacker 2y ago
There are apps that act native on multiple platforms, like IntelliJ. But those are rare.
Most cross-platform apps feel “out of place” on every platform except web, because different platforms have different styles: button sizes, background colors, whether the menu is in the window or top of screen or there is none, etc.
Most cross-platform apps are slower and buggier than native UI on every platform, and don’t support accessibility as well, because the native UI has been developed over a long time by a talented group (Apple, Microsoft, the Linux foundation, etc.) whereas most cross-platform implementations are developed in shorter spans. by smaller teams
If you want a cross-platform app to feel native, you have to re-implement a lot on each system. You must handle that subtle differences between platforms like menu position, even if you try to make your UI generic like IntelliJ’s*. And the library maintainers must develop adapters from each native control to their cross-platform one, and/or implement many accessibility-adapters, edge-cases, and optimizations. It’s almost certainly easier to write a native UI for every target platform than to write a cross-platform library powerful enough to feel native on every target platform, then handle the look-and-feel differences in your app where necessary.
* Actually, that may be IntelliJ’s only difference between platforms, I can’t think of any others OTOH. While their UI is unique IMO it feels “native” on macOS because it’s similar, and macOS is the OS, I use most, so maybe that’s why I feel it’s an exception to the “cross-platform can’t feel native” rule.