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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

#71

Post by josephg »

marrone12 wrote: post #37
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.

Yep. Our company switched to Figma and it's been leaps and bounds better for productivity. Having multiple people working on the same design file at the same time has been huge.

This isn't a property of native apps or web apps.

As someone who's worked on a lot of collaborative technology, I find it weird how most of the interest in collaborative editing is confined to the web. As I understand it, Figma's internal collaborative engine is written in C++ anyway.

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

#72

Post by alfalfasprout »

francisl wrote: post #58
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…

I'm not involved with figma in any way, just a user. But from what I understand, it is written in c++ and uses webassembly. Some ui parts are in standard TS+css. [1] There is absolutely no reason not to be responsive, low on memory and as powerful as a native app. [1] https://www.figma.com/blog/webassembly-cut-figmas-load-time-...

The backend is rust I believe. But at the end of the day I've used figma and the UI isn't anywhere near as responsive as a native app. You might not care about this but some people do.

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

#73

Post by alfalfasprout »

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).

Compare it to plain vim and you'll be shocked at the responsiveness difference. I even find the jetbrains IDEs kinda laggy.

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

#74

Post by statictype »

This will go well with the Daringfireball crowd but that’s about it.

I do like native apps and would prefer them all things being equal. But all things rarely are equal.

That’s why I use VSCode instead of Sublime. And Gmail instead of Apple Mail.

Instead of justifying why native apps are better they should really just explain why Sketch is better. None of the reasons they gave are compelling.

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

#75

Post by wavesplash »

josephg wrote: post #71
marrone12 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Our company switched to Figma and it's been leaps and bounds better for productivity. Having multiple people working on the same design file at the same time has been huge.

This isn't a property of native apps or web apps. As someone who's worked on a lot of collaborative technology, I find it weird how most of the interest in collaborative editing is confined to the web. As I understand it, Figma's internal collaborative engine is written in C++ anyway.

If I recall correctly, Figma's entire UI is C++ compiled down to webassembly.

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

#76

Post by zepto »

threatofrain wrote: post #62
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 the…

This is all true, but VSCode also had a lot of money thrown at it in terms of Microsoft paying multiple teams of developers.

That is what nova couldn’t compete with.

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

#77

Post by martinald »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #31
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 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.

The thing IMO that really killed Sketch was not being able to share Sketch files with non-Mac users and let them open them up. They should have at least created a Windows/Linux (or web) viewer. They don't need edit functionality but nearly always someone in the approval/feedback process of a mockup will not be on Mac.

It's just not realistic at larger orgs (or IMO smaller ones too) to expect everyone to be on a Mac.

Then came Figma which solved this problem completely.

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

#79

Post by nl »

alfalfasprout wrote: post #73
nl wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Compare it to plain vim and you'll be shocked at the responsiveness difference. I even find the jetbrains IDEs kinda laggy.

I've been a software developer since the 1990s. I know how Vi(m) feels and I much prefer the affordances offered by VS.Code.

Ironically Jetbrains IDEs are Java, using Java Swing for the UI[1]! This is even less native than VS.Code where at least native widgets are used.

I guess this shows how much our impressions are formed by expectations!

[1] https://stackoverflow.com/a/12311981/280795

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

#80

Post by [deleted] »

snarkypixel wrote: post #67
eyelidlessness wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

[deleted]
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