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Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps?

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Re: Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps?

#211

Post by antaviana »

fbelzile wrote: post #124

I make a living developing software only available on Windows and macOS. That said, if I didn't need to interact so much with the operating system, I'd be making a web app. It all depends on what you want to make though. Video editing software? Native app. CRUD app? Web app. You may also want to consider pricing implications of both. Desktop software can usually be sold for a higher up front cost, but it's tough sell…

We sell our B2B desktop software as a subscription since 2012 (previously it was freeware).

The key is to make it only available as a subscription (no permanent licenses) and it does not have any cloud component.

We managed not to fall in the trap of making two types of licenses (suscription or permanent) to maximize early revenue (we could affort to wait).

We seek a marriage relationship with our users not a hook up.

This increases the value our users extract knowing it will not go away in the long term and the lifetime value of customers is a lot higher.

We know that some customers will not accept a subscription-only desktop application but in B2B world they are fewer than it might seem.

Re: Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps?

#212

Post by psds2 »

ZoomZoomZoom wrote: post #144

I'm going to be slammed for using these two words, but for any real work you need to have as few layers of indirection between the user and the machine as possible, and this includes the UX, in the sense that it is tailored to the fastest and most comfortable data entry and process monitoring. I don't see any `web first` or Electron solution replacing Reaper or Blender in a foreseeable future. One exception I'm intri…

VSCode, because of electron, doesn't allow you to have multiple windows that share state while working on a project. This makes it terrible with multiple screens.

Re: Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps?

#213

Post by smabie »

bobblywobbles wrote: post #98
ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #27

Every single app that I use, I try and make sure it is native. I shun electron apps at all cost. It's because people who put in effort to use the native APIs put in a lot more effort in the app in general based on my anecdotal evidence. It is also more performant and smaller in size, things that I cherish. It also pays homage to limits and striving to come up with new ways of overcoming them, which hackers would have…

I admire your words here. I am on the other side, building electron apps, I appreciate the flexibility and ease because I would rather iterate on ideas then learn three different OS-hooks. I do agree that memory usage is too high on these types of apps and we as developers can be lax about performance.

When why not just use gtk or qt and call it a day? Electron is unnecessary.

Re: Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps?

#214

Post by pmlnr »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #200
feifan wrote: post #88

IMO desktop apps aren’t quite equivalent to native apps. Native apps look and behave in a consistent way. They have • Familiar UI primitives: - Controls and chrome are in the same place - Font sizes are the same across apps - Consistent icons and button shapes • Support standard keyboard shortcuts (including obscure ones that developers re-implementing these UIs might not know about) - All the Emacs-style keybindings…

Consistency is maybe overrated? I purposefully make my FF unlike the other apps on my system. I use a couple of workarounds to prevent OS level keybinds from working in some apps. Sometimes a completely purpose made UI is better, sometimes. In general, consistency [in desktop UI] is good, but there are good reasons to break it.

It is certainly not overrated. See Windows 10.

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/control-panel-and-setti...

https://www.windowscentral.com/sites/wpcentral.com/files/sty...

Re: Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps?

#216

Post by WilliamEdward »

PNWChris wrote: post #75
WilliamEdward wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Email doesn't naturally involve the web? What?

I believe they’re referring to the web as port 80/443 http(s) traffic. It’s the old World Wide Web vs internet distinction, if you will. Email really is just a protocol for message sending, and it lives on it’s own port with its own server. If you have an email client and access to an email server (POP/SMTP/however), you can use email over the internet but without the “web”. Basically, the web email client ought not…

It was the ambiguity of the word 'web' that tripped me up. You still need a network of computers for email to be useful.

Re: Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps?

#217

Post by dmitrybrant »

I specialize in data recovery / digital forensics tools, which require very low-level disk access to be able to read physical media at the block level. I doubt there will ever be an HTML5 standard for low-level disk access.

But aside from my particular specialty, I also prefer any other software I use to be fully native. I'm surprised that's such a controversial thing to ask for these days. All I ask is so precious little:

* I want the software I use to be designed to run on the CPU that I own!

* I want software that doesn't require me to upgrade my laptop every two years because of how inefficient it gets with every iteration.

* I want software that isn't laughably bloated. I think we have a real problem when we don't bat an eye upon seeing the most rudimentary apps requiring 200+ MB of space.

Re: Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps?

#218

Post by marclave »

dmitrybrant wrote: post #217

I specialize in data recovery / digital forensics tools, which require very low-level disk access to be able to read physical media at the block level. I doubt there will ever be an HTML5 standard for low-level disk access. But aside from my particular specialty, I also prefer any other software I use to be fully native. I'm surprised that's such a controversial thing to ask for these days. All I ask is so precious l…

Have you looked into webassembly and how browsers give access to filesystems[1], there could be hope for a future of high performant filesystem access.

[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/FileSystem

Re: Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps?

#219

Post by KaoruAoiShiho »

ZoomZoomZoom wrote: post #144

I'm going to be slammed for using these two words, but for any real work you need to have as few layers of indirection between the user and the machine as possible, and this includes the UX, in the sense that it is tailored to the fastest and most comfortable data entry and process monitoring. I don't see any `web first` or Electron solution replacing Reaper or Blender in a foreseeable future. One exception I'm intri…

VS Code is slow at basic things like having characters show up on screen after hitting the key. It's good at everything else though so that lag doesn't matter as much.

Re: Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps?

#220

Post by umvi »

dmitrybrant wrote: post #217

I specialize in data recovery / digital forensics tools, which require very low-level disk access to be able to read physical media at the block level. I doubt there will ever be an HTML5 standard for low-level disk access. But aside from my particular specialty, I also prefer any other software I use to be fully native. I'm surprised that's such a controversial thing to ask for these days. All I ask is so precious l…

I remember hanging out in /r/Unity3d and some newbie posted a download for their completed game. It was super basic - just a game where you move a cube around a grid, but the size of the game was insane, like half a gig.

The dev who posted it seemed perplexed when people told him the game was 100x bigger than it should be.

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