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Shortchanging Your Business with User-Hostile Platforms

al3x.net

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Re: Shortchanging Your Business with User-Hostile Platforms

#11

Post by aditya »

This is a fascinating question. AIR and the new mobile app frameworks are great for prototyping and getting an app out there really quickly, and perhaps then you can make the decision to either build native apps for your biggest platforms; or not.

Alex is obviously pointing to the verbal minority (of which he is a part), because for every person out there that speaks out against, say, the Tweetdeck AIR app; there are probably millions that are satisfied with it and in fact prefer it to the native alternatives (that don't have columns, even though they might be native).

The problem with listening to the verbal minority is that you're then building for the verbal minority, and not the bulk of your true user base.

Startups are all about priorities, right? And logically you should prioritize things that will materially affect your business (such as stability) over things that aren't real problems but get written up anyway. EDIT: I mean, he did leave Campfire because of a stability issue, even though there's a native app for it ;-)

Re: Shortchanging Your Business with User-Hostile Platforms

#12

Post by antimatter15 »

I've never liked AIR and QT/WebKit apps (or even the Opera web browser) because there's this feeling similar to that of Uncanny Valley, where something just doesn't feel right. The scroll bar doesn't work well, something happens too fast or too slow, selection doesn't behave as it should, the buttons look weird. Something along those lines.

Re: Shortchanging Your Business with User-Hostile Platforms

#13

Post by al3x »

StavrosK wrote: post #8
spooneybarger wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

desktop

I see, thanks. My comment above doesn't apply, then. However, I think you can get very nice-looking, cross-platform, native apps with python and QT, GTK or other toolkits.

Examples? I've seen okay looking GTK and QT apps running under a specific OS or distribution, but usually when you try to run them on a different OS they fall apart.

Re: Shortchanging Your Business with User-Hostile Platforms

#14

Post by iamclovin »

I guess the same applies for apps in the mobile space too. iOS Apps built using frameworks such as Titanium and PhoneGap always seem a little off.

There is an interesting discussion about this in Dan Benjamin's latest episode of the 'Build And Analyze' series with Marco Arment. http://5by5.tv/buildanalyze/8

Re: Shortchanging Your Business with User-Hostile Platforms

#15

Post by al3x »

aditya wrote: post #11

This is a fascinating question. AIR and the new mobile app frameworks are great for prototyping and getting an app out there really quickly, and perhaps then you can make the decision to either build native apps for your biggest platforms; or not. Alex is obviously pointing to the verbal minority (of which he is a part), because for every person out there that speaks out against, say, the Tweetdeck AIR app; there are…

You can dismiss the "verbal minority", or you could treat them as leading indicators. Personally, I'll err on the side of building something that's up to my standards rather than seeing if I can get away with mediocrity.

It's entirely possible to focus on both stability and, say, a quality desktop application. If you're under-resourced to accomplish both goals, maybe you didn't plan correctly.

Re: Shortchanging Your Business with User-Hostile Platforms

#16

Post by ambirex »

antimatter15 wrote: post #12

I've never liked AIR and QT/WebKit apps (or even the Opera web browser) because there's this feeling similar to that of Uncanny Valley, where something just doesn't feel right. The scroll bar doesn't work well, something happens too fast or too slow, selection doesn't behave as it should, the buttons look weird. Something along those lines.

I think "Uncanny Valley" is exactly right. It was something we faced when building an AIR app, we could mimic the look of the each OS pretty closely but it never felt quite right.

In the end we opted to a stylize feel of each OS but not an attempt to recreate the look and feel exactly.

Re: Shortchanging Your Business with User-Hostile Platforms

#17

Post by StavrosK »

al3x wrote: post #13
StavrosK wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see, thanks. My comment above doesn't apply, then. However, I think you can get very nice-looking, cross-platform, native apps with python and QT, GTK or other toolkits.

Examples? I've seen okay looking GTK and QT apps running under a specific OS or distribution, but usually when you try to run them on a different OS they fall apart.

I wrote a small mail notifier a while ago, it displayed fine on Linux with minimal changes. I don't have any other examples handy, though, sorry...

Re: Shortchanging Your Business with User-Hostile Platforms

#18

Post by moondowner »

al3x wrote: post #13
StavrosK wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see, thanks. My comment above doesn't apply, then. However, I think you can get very nice-looking, cross-platform, native apps with python and QT, GTK or other toolkits.

Examples? I've seen okay looking GTK and QT apps running under a specific OS or distribution, but usually when you try to run them on a different OS they fall apart.

Qt supports different native styles, Qt looks - and behaves - native in Windows, OS X, GNOME, KDE, ... Try QtCreator for example, or VLC, or VirtualBox, or any other application made in Qt.

Check out their whitepaper "Qt Cross-Platform Application Framework": http://qt.nokia.com/files/pdf/qt-4.4-whitepaper

Re: Shortchanging Your Business with User-Hostile Platforms

#19

Post by StavrosK »

antimatter15 wrote: post #12

I've never liked AIR and QT/WebKit apps (or even the Opera web browser) because there's this feeling similar to that of Uncanny Valley, where something just doesn't feel right. The scroll bar doesn't work well, something happens too fast or too slow, selection doesn't behave as it should, the buttons look weird. Something along those lines.

Opera has been native for a while...

Re: Shortchanging Your Business with User-Hostile Platforms

#20

Post by patio11 »

I think developers frequently suffer from "This doesn't flatter my sensibilities, so it must be crap. There is a sense of cosmic justice, so this will hurt the business."

I was told, repeatedly, that Mac owners are Jobs-loving HIG fascists who look down on Java apps. Separately, their conversion rate was double PC owners. Who am I supposed to believe, the experts or my lying eyes?

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