5 ms·

It's really interesting how in 2007, I believed (as did pg, seemingly) that the web would eventually overtake desktop software. Fast forward seven years, and s

It's really interesting how in 2007, I believed (as did pg, seemingly) that the web would eventually overtake desktop software. Fast forward seven years, and some of the biggest names in software (Instagram, Lyft) have completely abandoned the web for "desktop" (really, native) software. That so much code ships directly to mobile devices says a lot about the power of centralized app stores and truly sandboxed installations where one app can't trash the entire system. We've come a long way.

anoncow 13y ago
Will there be a move towards decentralization of apps again or are we locked in? The inertia that app store and play store have is formidable. If Windows Phone fails, some part of the blame will be on the availibility of apps.
joeguilmette 13y ago
Instagram and Lyft are the biggest names in software?
- blntechie 13y ago
  It's not. But clearly there is a momentum towards native apps again. Surprising is that this momentum is happening even in desktops. You just have to see how many popular services one used to do from browsers are being done from mobile/tablet apps now. Email, chat, social, weather etc. And I'm not even including non-web apps like Instagram, Vine, Snapchat, Uber, Lyft etc. here.
  - robmcm 13y ago
    Instagram, Vine, Snapchat, Uber, Lyft are mobile apps because they suit the context of mobile or rely on their features (camera/video). I think they are obviously mobile first because without mobile they wouldn't exist.
beefman 13y ago
The critical characteristic of the desktop here isn't its use of native code. It's more the local filesystem. Many mobile apps use network data. From this perspective they have more in common with web apps than with desktop software. Despite this, I'm inclined to agree that the web is threatened. The desktop may be defined by local files but the web wasn't defined by remote ones. It was more about the culture. More about anyone-can-publish. To me, that's the baby at risk in the mobile bathwater. That, and any aspect of personal computing that can't be performed on a phone. Which is most of them. I'll stick with the hemorrhoids and circadian disruption, thanks. My wife and I were talking about this the other night: It's not that people who learned to compute on the desktop are abandoning it for mobile. It's that most people couldn't handle desktop computing in the first place. It's too abstract (dare I say difficult?). So the mobile revolution is really about the unwashed masses computing for the first time. Perhaps that's why mobile apps and operating systems eerily remind me of soap operas and reality TV.
- schuke 13y ago
  > It's not that people who learned to compute on the desktop are abandoning it for mobile. It's that most people couldn't handle desktop computing in the first place. Totally agree. For most everyday scenarios, using Windows is like flying a Boeing 737 for your daily commute: it's a huge overkill, requiring way too much setting up and maintenance and when you incidentally touches one switch the whole thing stops working. Windows 8 didn't take off because what MSFT did was in addition to all the panels of the 737, they put an iPad in the cabin. For those familiar with Windows that's no big deal: this is why we see people shrug off all the Win 8 hate, saying "it's just Windows 7 plus touching interface". But for those had trouble coping with Windows in the first place, it's now doubly confusing.
  - hiharryhere 13y ago
    I dig this analogy. Since moving my folks over to iPads, I get emails from them daily, photos shared with me and zero distressed support calls.
code_duck 13y ago
Facebook has been steadily building a website for Instagram since they acquired it. You can now view, comment on and like photos from a browser.
gaius 13y ago
It is not surprising at all. "The Cloud" is really "the mainframe" and "native software" is really "client-server". The cycle takes 10 years or so but once you've seen a few you'll realize that the same things come round again and again. The only progress is through better hardware. Software guys, with their (our) fascination for the new and shiny and disdain for "legacy code" means we just reinvent the wheel over and over again.
- 72deluxe 13y ago
  I was only thinking this yesterday. It is very very true. All of it is client-server, just with different transport protocols. In the end, it is just interfaces to databases basically!
  - gaius 13y ago
    Yep, there are "forms" (interfaces for entering data) and "reports" (interfaces for extracting data) and that's really it as far as 99% of apps go. Even massively complicated things like Amazon are really just a form for you to say what you want, and a report they run in the warehouse to tell them what to pack. There's nothing to it that would be unfamiliar to a programmer from the '70s.
    - 72deluxe 13y ago
      Even better, Amazon don't need to get a physical report but use hand-held devices. So, clearly the plan is: 1. Write a good database (as Oracle say "the database is the application") 2. Put a dummy interface on it (RESTful HTTP anyone?) 3. Write a native client for each platform (or maybe a web based one if you want endless testing and pain) 4. Profit? (Or perhaps running costs... and no profit) Weirdly, they recycle this concept again and again as something ground-breaking and wonderfully new but this is 99% of apps, as you say.
      - cgh 13y ago
        Feels like you've taken the red pill, right? It's the major reason I find web development, particularly front-end stuff, so dull and the hyperbole so grating. I heard and saw all the same stuff from VB developers in 1996. As you implied, the nitty-gritty is in the db for most applications. And I've come to accept that much of the most interesting and innovative stuff happens in game programming.
forgottenpaswrd 13y ago
Well, in my opinion web programming and native are blending together. The web approaches native, with asm.js and webgl. It is not just a document anymore. Native approaches web, just look at what Apple, or Dropbox are doing(they use native code for giving you network capabilities).
- eldavido 13y ago
  I sincerely hope this doesn't happen. Web software basically runs anywhere and doesn't have to be updated; it has minimal platform dependencies. Native code, on the other hand, is a 25-year-long story of install/uninstall, sophisticated package/dependency management, chroot jails, and viruses. I fear that, if web software continues its crawl out of the browser sandbox, we'll get all the disadvantages of native code (security exploits, dependency problems) without any of the advantages (speed, high-performance graphics)
rmc 13y ago
Fast forward seven years, and some of the biggest names in software (Instagram, Lyft) have completely abandoned the web for "desktop" (really, native) software. But don't those software only work by connecting to their cloud servers? Could you use Instagram if Instagram Ltd turned off their servers? That means it's inherently web software.
- visualR 13y ago
  Web and internet are not the same thing. Web generally refers to a browser client.
nazka 13y ago
We shouldn't fool ourselves. Even with technologies like AngularJS, webGL, or D3.js ; desktop applications will always be there. You will always have software that need the maximum of power and will be native. Even if you think that because in 5 years computers will be much more faster, it won't change the fact that some applications will need to have every ressources available. The only place where I can see we would avoid to do native apps is for mobile apps. Because in the future mobiles will be faster but they stay limited by their small screen. So you will use higher level tools to do your "simple" app that doesn't require thousands buttons and stay more productive.
higherpurpose 13y ago
That's because the web disrupted native desktop, and native mobile is disrupting both web and native desktop. Native mobile is certainly not the same as native desktop. It's a completely new paradigm. The web might disrupt native mobile yet again in the future. And then perhaps native-glassware or whatever will disrupt web on mobile, and so on.

anoncow 13y ago

Will there be a move towards decentralization of apps again or are we locked in? The inertia that app store and play store have is formidable. If Windows Phone fails, some part of the blame will be on the availibility of apps.

joeguilmette 13y ago

Instagram and Lyft are the biggest names in software?

blntechie 13y ago
It's not. But clearly there is a momentum towards native apps again. Surprising is that this momentum is happening even in desktops. You just have to see how many popular services one used to do from browsers are being done from mobile/tablet apps now. Email, chat, social, weather etc. And I'm not even including non-web apps like Instagram, Vine, Snapchat, Uber, Lyft etc. here.
- robmcm 13y ago
  Instagram, Vine, Snapchat, Uber, Lyft are mobile apps because they suit the context of mobile or rely on their features (camera/video). I think they are obviously mobile first because without mobile they wouldn't exist.

beefman 13y ago

The critical characteristic of the desktop here isn't its use of native code. It's more the local filesystem. Many mobile apps use network data. From this perspective they have more in common with web apps than with desktop software. Despite this, I'm inclined to agree that the web is threatened. The desktop may be defined by local files but the web wasn't defined by remote ones. It was more about the culture. More about anyone-can-publish. To me, that's the baby at risk in the mobile bathwater. That, and any aspect of personal computing that can't be performed on a phone. Which is most of them. I'll stick with the hemorrhoids and circadian disruption, thanks. My wife and I were talking about this the other night: It's not that people who learned to compute on the desktop are abandoning it for mobile. It's that most people couldn't handle desktop computing in the first place. It's too abstract (dare I say difficult?). So the mobile revolution is really about the unwashed masses computing for the first time. Perhaps that's why mobile apps and operating systems eerily remind me of soap operas and reality TV.

schuke 13y ago
> It's not that people who learned to compute on the desktop are abandoning it for mobile. It's that most people couldn't handle desktop computing in the first place. Totally agree. For most everyday scenarios, using Windows is like flying a Boeing 737 for your daily commute: it's a huge overkill, requiring way too much setting up and maintenance and when you incidentally touches one switch the whole thing stops working. Windows 8 didn't take off because what MSFT did was in addition to all the panels of the 737, they put an iPad in the cabin. For those familiar with Windows that's no big deal: this is why we see people shrug off all the Win 8 hate, saying "it's just Windows 7 plus touching interface". But for those had trouble coping with Windows in the first place, it's now doubly confusing.
- hiharryhere 13y ago
  I dig this analogy. Since moving my folks over to iPads, I get emails from them daily, photos shared with me and zero distressed support calls.

code_duck 13y ago

Facebook has been steadily building a website for Instagram since they acquired it. You can now view, comment on and like photos from a browser.

gaius 13y ago

It is not surprising at all. "The Cloud" is really "the mainframe" and "native software" is really "client-server". The cycle takes 10 years or so but once you've seen a few you'll realize that the same things come round again and again. The only progress is through better hardware. Software guys, with their (our) fascination for the new and shiny and disdain for "legacy code" means we just reinvent the wheel over and over again.

72deluxe 13y ago
I was only thinking this yesterday. It is very very true. All of it is client-server, just with different transport protocols. In the end, it is just interfaces to databases basically!
- gaius 13y ago
  Yep, there are "forms" (interfaces for entering data) and "reports" (interfaces for extracting data) and that's really it as far as 99% of apps go. Even massively complicated things like Amazon are really just a form for you to say what you want, and a report they run in the warehouse to tell them what to pack. There's nothing to it that would be unfamiliar to a programmer from the '70s.
  - 72deluxe 13y ago
    Even better, Amazon don't need to get a physical report but use hand-held devices. So, clearly the plan is: 1. Write a good database (as Oracle say "the database is the application") 2. Put a dummy interface on it (RESTful HTTP anyone?) 3. Write a native client for each platform (or maybe a web based one if you want endless testing and pain) 4. Profit? (Or perhaps running costs... and no profit) Weirdly, they recycle this concept again and again as something ground-breaking and wonderfully new but this is 99% of apps, as you say.
    - cgh 13y ago
      Feels like you've taken the red pill, right? It's the major reason I find web development, particularly front-end stuff, so dull and the hyperbole so grating. I heard and saw all the same stuff from VB developers in 1996. As you implied, the nitty-gritty is in the db for most applications. And I've come to accept that much of the most interesting and innovative stuff happens in game programming.

forgottenpaswrd 13y ago

Well, in my opinion web programming and native are blending together. The web approaches native, with asm.js and webgl. It is not just a document anymore. Native approaches web, just look at what Apple, or Dropbox are doing(they use native code for giving you network capabilities).

eldavido 13y ago
I sincerely hope this doesn't happen. Web software basically runs anywhere and doesn't have to be updated; it has minimal platform dependencies. Native code, on the other hand, is a 25-year-long story of install/uninstall, sophisticated package/dependency management, chroot jails, and viruses. I fear that, if web software continues its crawl out of the browser sandbox, we'll get all the disadvantages of native code (security exploits, dependency problems) without any of the advantages (speed, high-performance graphics)

rmc 13y ago

Fast forward seven years, and some of the biggest names in software (Instagram, Lyft) have completely abandoned the web for "desktop" (really, native) software. But don't those software only work by connecting to their cloud servers? Could you use Instagram if Instagram Ltd turned off their servers? That means it's inherently web software.

visualR 13y ago
Web and internet are not the same thing. Web generally refers to a browser client.

nazka 13y ago

We shouldn't fool ourselves. Even with technologies like AngularJS, webGL, or D3.js ; desktop applications will always be there. You will always have software that need the maximum of power and will be native. Even if you think that because in 5 years computers will be much more faster, it won't change the fact that some applications will need to have every ressources available. The only place where I can see we would avoid to do native apps is for mobile apps. Because in the future mobiles will be faster but they stay limited by their small screen. So you will use higher level tools to do your "simple" app that doesn't require thousands buttons and stay more productive.

higherpurpose 13y ago

That's because the web disrupted native desktop, and native mobile is disrupting both web and native desktop. Native mobile is certainly not the same as native desktop. It's a completely new paradigm. The web might disrupt native mobile yet again in the future. And then perhaps native-glassware or whatever will disrupt web on mobile, and so on.