Not yet for music production. DAW's, software synthesisers, drum machines, latency matters here.
Funny that the other day I discovered bandlab. It's not professional but for my hobby usage it's the best I've found
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?
#42In some (most) cases, desktop apps could be better - performance, latency, offgrid capabilities, and even privacy. In most cases, I prefer offline desktop apps, then their online counterparts.
One area which is really tough to nail is cross-platform support though. Getting a good app on one system is hard enough, getting it in all three - rarely done. This is one of the things where web shines.
From business standpoint, I think web-first with an eye on native works for majority of cases. That is, as long as the majority of users don’t care about the above. In some future, if we start valuing efficiency and especially privacy more, this could turn around. But it feels like, even then, web will probably find a way to make more sense for most people.
Re: Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps?
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
webgl and wasm? Edit: I presumed that the context of the discussion was apps in a general sense. Obviously not every application is going to be on the web and there are a lot of niche software that will never make the switch. I was thinking more qucad or sketch 3d for woodworkers to plan their desks, not solidworks and all its plugins to handle complex fluid simulation in mission critical areas.
Still wishful thinking at this point.
Do you know OnShape?
Re: Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps?
#44You need a desktop app when 1) you’re spending a ton of time in the app or 2) you need every ounce of performance and feature set that you can obtain and 3) you’re willing to pay for it.
If you’re not building something like this, don’t build for desktop.
Re: Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps?
#45It's true that many apps could be replaced today with a website, specially those that are basically capturing and showing data.
But there are still many areas where native is king.
- Games
- Audio / Video work
- Adobe type of work (photo editing, motion graphics, vectors, etc)
- 3d
- Office. For me Google docs is enough, but not for heavy users.
- Desktop utilities (eg: Alfred, iStatMenus, etc). You could certainly use a web UI for those, and it would probably be fine , but you'd still need some native integration.
Re: Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps?
#46What a crazy mixed-up world: on desktop we ask if there's a future for native apps, while on mobile we ask if there's a future for web apps.
Re: Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps?
#47Not yet for music production. DAW's, software synthesisers, drum machines, latency matters here.
Funny that the other day I discovered bandlab. It's not professional but for my hobby usage it's the best I've found
Same here - I was a Cakewalk user back in the 90s, and decided on a whim to find out if it was still around.
Re: Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps?
#48Every 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…
1 gig for Slack ? I count And currently taking < 300 MB RAM
Re: Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps?
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
> However as a developer and as a software business owner/investor, it's (much) better to write web apps. Why do you say that?
I think he is saying that because with webapps you have - control over your software and updates - no one can pirate your software/service
How do you have more "control over your software" with a web app? With a native app, I can do virtually anything. With a web app, I can really only do what (Google ∩ Apple ∩ Microsoft)'s web browser teams decided to prioritize, and allow, and optimize.
As for 'pirating', is that a serious concern these days? I've only ever heard about it being an issue at big companies selling software to other big companies, where it's solved with "license servers".
Re: Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps?
#50Every 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…
Agreed. If you have a CPU from 2012 onwards, 16GB of RAM and an SSD, that’s a respectable hardware setup. It might not be the fastest piece of kit on the planet, but I don’t see any reason why it couldn’t last another 3 to 5 years without feeling slow.
Electron apps invariably make such kit feel slower than it actually is. You can get good performance out of even older hardware if you treat it well and load it with good software that respects the hardware.