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Sketch: Proud to Build a Truly Native Mac App

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Re: Sketch: Proud to Build a Truly Native Mac App

#61

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

qppo wrote: post #57
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you, and I think this is a pretty good signal that Sketch is REALLY feeling the heat from Figma, because they aren't offering a better argument besides "we're native". The bandwagon has clearly jumped off Sketch and onto Figma, and not because it's "fashionable", but because Figma is plain awesome.

I don't know if they're feeling the heat since they seem like two different verticals. Sketch is a drawing app with support for some UI development workflows. Figma is workplace productivity software with support for some UI development workflows and drawing. I love Sketch but it's closer to Illustrator or XD (at least, that's how I use it) than Figma. If they want to throw shade it should be at Adobe, since their in…

All I can say is I know of at least a couple of design teams that switched all of their workflows off Sketch and onto Figma, so seems like a direct competitor to me.

Re: Sketch: Proud to Build a Truly Native Mac App

#62

Post by threatofrain »

asien wrote: post #18

Reminds me of Blackberry that decided to stick to keyboard and went bankrupt. Users don’t care about native or not , they care only about innovation.

Hence why Visual Studio Code destroyed the editor world. As an editor it was nothing special at all; at that time it was just intellisense that blew it up IMO. People were willing to eat non-native solely for intellisense.

By now VSC has developed a moat with their incredible velocity for delivering new features, like voice chat, shared sessions, git + docker + debugger integration, etc.

By the time Nova came out they looked incredibly behind. The front page advertising their app looks cluttered with catch-up features.

Re: Sketch: Proud to Build a Truly Native Mac App

#63

Post by eyelidlessness »

yesimahuman wrote: post #13

I respect them for sticking to this, but I think it's a mistake. It's clear users in general don't care about an app being pure Mac OS controls/SDKs/etc. and their claims about it being a truly superior UX are unfounded (having used both regularly, Figma disproves that heavily). With this, Sketch isn't available on Windows nor the web (until very recently it seems?). I wouldn't die on that hill.

I care about it, and if the software was available to buy I would pay a premium for it as I’ve done before. That’s why I landed on the Mac platform. In the “bad” old days, the only major developers were Mac die hards, and very little of the platform felt foreign or unconventional. Now, the only thing keeping me on the Mac platform is muscle memory and a few lucky (hardware) strikes.

Re: Sketch: Proud to Build a Truly Native Mac App

#64

Post by eyelidlessness »

nl wrote: post #38
outworlder wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's clear users in general don't care about an app being pure Mac OS controls/SDKs/etc. They may not put it in those terms, but they do. They can tell when an app feels 'weird' or slow (be it actually slow or just higher latency). That depends a lot on the user base for the specific app in question. The more 'casual' the user base, the less it matters. Being native also allows you to get functionality for free tha…

VS.Code users aren't exactly casual users and in the main are happy enough to use it as their main coding interface many hours per day (and yes I understand that this is HN so now there will be a bunch of people saying "I'm not happy).

I love the things VSCode offers that its competition doesn’t. I can’t imagine working with any of the other available editors for the Mac. I hate how I feel like I’m working in a weird web app all day every day. I feel both simultaneously.

Re: Sketch: Proud to Build a Truly Native Mac App

#65

Post by _qulr »

untog wrote: post #28
robertoandred wrote: post #11

Good for them staying native and not getting caught in a least-common denominator Electron hell. People uses Macs because they want to use Macs and software that takes advantage of the reliability and consistency of that ecosystem.

> People uses Macs because they want to use Macs and software that takes advantage of the reliability and consistency of that ecosystem ehhh. I think if you did some analytics of “apps Mac users use” an absolute ton would be “a web browser and very little else”. I can think of very few truly native Mac apps I depend upon and that keep me on the platform. What does keep me on Macs is that every now and then I need to…

> What does keep me on Macs is that every now and then I need to compile an iOS app.

As a longtime Mac user, I really wish that Apple would make it possible to compile iOS apps on iPad. Not for myself, but for the developers who are only on the Mac for iOS development. I don't think it does anyone any good to force them to be in a place where they don't want to be. I have no ill will against iOS developers, but I also don't want them to transform the Mac into something non-Mac. Mac has always been a "niche" platform, and that's fine! Let the users who are here voluntarily stay, and let the users who are here only "by force" go to a platform that suits their needs better, perhaps iPad. If Xcode for iPad can facilitate that, I'm all in favor.

Re: Sketch: Proud to Build a Truly Native Mac App

#67

Post by snarkypixel »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #63
yesimahuman wrote: post #13

I respect them for sticking to this, but I think it's a mistake. It's clear users in general don't care about an app being pure Mac OS controls/SDKs/etc. and their claims about it being a truly superior UX are unfounded (having used both regularly, Figma disproves that heavily). With this, Sketch isn't available on Windows nor the web (until very recently it seems?). I wouldn't die on that hill.

I care about it, and if the software was available to buy I would pay a premium for it as I’ve done before. That’s why I landed on the Mac platform. In the “bad” old days, the only major developers were Mac die hards, and very little of the platform felt foreign or unconventional. Now, the only thing keeping me on the Mac platform is muscle memory and a few lucky (hardware) strikes.

Design is a team sport, so what you need to ask yourself is does the whole team prefer to use a native mac app vs browser? RIP sketch

Re: Sketch: Proud to Build a Truly Native Mac App

#68

Post by wrs »

CognitiveLens wrote: post #10
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ability to collaborate in real-time is not something exclusive to web apps.

of course not, but the effort to bring real-time collaboration to native apps is much higher, e.g. MS Office's still-poor current experience compared with Google Docs's capabilities 5 years ago

There’s no technical reason why that would be true. What is true is if you have an app and doc format that weren’t designed for real-time collaboration, it’ll be really hard to retrofit, regardless of your choice of app platform.

Re: Sketch: Proud to Build a Truly Native Mac App

#70

Post by [deleted] »

newscracker wrote: post #60
fxtentacle wrote: post #52

By now, I'd treat Apple-exclusive app developers for Stockholm syndrome. I used to build a Mac-only native app for real-time audio processing, which was great for battery life, snappy performance and had no latency. But the work that Apple pushed on me just to keep things running okay-ish across OS releases was too much to bear compared with the meager revenue of only serving 10% of the addressable market. By now, my…

I was with you until you mentioned Epic. What Epic did was a violation of a contract in a way it knew would bring about a confrontation. The judge hearing the case agreed that it was purely self-inflicted pain by Epic. To be clear, many App Store rules seem arbitrary and ill defined (and enforced), but Epic is not the one to support here for what it did.

[deleted]
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