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Sure, native apps have better performance on mobile. But the same thing is true on desktop, yet the web somehow stays popular on desktop. That suggests that the

Sure, native apps have better performance on mobile. But the same thing is true on desktop, yet the web somehow stays popular on desktop. That suggests that the behavior of platform owners (Apple and Google) is the real reason for the popularity of apps on mobile, and performance is just a distraction.

lugg 13y ago
Only in the last few years has SAAS applications really taken over native. Native has only been taken over so recently due to abundance in network latency and javascript engine improvements. We've also been pushing for web app models as developers as a collective quite hard. Not so much with the mobile side of things (all got dollared eyes maybe?) We will likely see a push back into the web side of things once mobile browsers become less painful to use and more powerful in what they can do. In other words, "decline of the mobile web", yea right. (don't forget half the article was about how we're spending more and more time in mobile web over desktop web.)
techscruggs 13y ago
Gmail is faster than any native email client I have ever used.
habosa 13y ago
As lugg said, it took a long time for web apps to rival native apps in functionality, and there are still a lot of places where they don't (large files, graphics, etc). In ~3-5 years the class of web apps that are lightning fast on desktop now will be fast on mobile.
- blueskin_ 13y ago
  >and there are still a lot of places where they don't This would be better phrased as "and there are still only a few places where they do". Google Docs, for example, is great for basic collaborative editing (as long as you don't mind the NSA reading it), but has a UI that it a total pain (especially the world's worst keyboard shortcuts, e.g. having ctrl-enter and shift-enter reversed, and completely lacks advanced features.
vincentleeuwen 13y ago
Isn't the whole performance discussion based on synchronizing versus not synchronizing? There's no reason to synchronize on a Desktop as one can assume there's wifi available.
- 7952 13y ago
  I think that sync vs not syncing tends to be cyclical. We all started using Gmail because synchronising to a mail server is annoying and PCs where slow. Ten years later machines have a fast internet connection, 1TB HDD as standard and, maybe an SSD. When you have to wait 10 seconds just to view an attachment syncing makes a lot of sense. But generating a thumbnail of that same PDF would be much better handled pre-emptively in the cloud. The problem is believing that one approach is better for every function of an app. Few user machines will ever have a guaranteed large amount of bandwidth. This is just as true on desktop machines as mobile, but less acknowledged.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  Since "desktop" as a platform includes laptops, which have pretty similar connectivity issues as mobile devices, that's really not true.

lugg 13y ago

Only in the last few years has SAAS applications really taken over native. Native has only been taken over so recently due to abundance in network latency and javascript engine improvements. We've also been pushing for web app models as developers as a collective quite hard. Not so much with the mobile side of things (all got dollared eyes maybe?) We will likely see a push back into the web side of things once mobile browsers become less painful to use and more powerful in what they can do. In other words, "decline of the mobile web", yea right. (don't forget half the article was about how we're spending more and more time in mobile web over desktop web.)

techscruggs 13y ago

Gmail is faster than any native email client I have ever used.

habosa 13y ago

As lugg said, it took a long time for web apps to rival native apps in functionality, and there are still a lot of places where they don't (large files, graphics, etc). In ~3-5 years the class of web apps that are lightning fast on desktop now will be fast on mobile.

blueskin_ 13y ago
>and there are still a lot of places where they don't This would be better phrased as "and there are still only a few places where they do". Google Docs, for example, is great for basic collaborative editing (as long as you don't mind the NSA reading it), but has a UI that it a total pain (especially the world's worst keyboard shortcuts, e.g. having ctrl-enter and shift-enter reversed, and completely lacks advanced features.

vincentleeuwen 13y ago

Isn't the whole performance discussion based on synchronizing versus not synchronizing? There's no reason to synchronize on a Desktop as one can assume there's wifi available.

7952 13y ago
I think that sync vs not syncing tends to be cyclical. We all started using Gmail because synchronising to a mail server is annoying and PCs where slow. Ten years later machines have a fast internet connection, 1TB HDD as standard and, maybe an SSD. When you have to wait 10 seconds just to view an attachment syncing makes a lot of sense. But generating a thumbnail of that same PDF would be much better handled pre-emptively in the cloud. The problem is believing that one approach is better for every function of an app. Few user machines will ever have a guaranteed large amount of bandwidth. This is just as true on desktop machines as mobile, but less acknowledged.
dragonwriter 13y ago
Since "desktop" as a platform includes laptops, which have pretty similar connectivity issues as mobile devices, that's really not true.