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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

#81

Post by edgyquant »

martinald wrote: post #77
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.

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.…

Yeah this. I love Macs but I mostly develop on my Linux Workstation so my company’s been using Figma since March and I’d honestly forgotten about sketch

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

#82

Post by jessecurry »

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 VSCode, but Electron apps are still pretty brutal on battery life, so it’s hard to work for very long without being plugged in. I’d personally love a pure native version for that reason alone, but the feature set wins out for day to day usage since I work mostly from home anyways.

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

#83

Post by prawn »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #39

I wouldn't be proud to keep developing on Apple's platforms considering they're an utter pain these days to continue to support as well as them being outwardly hostile. I wouldn't bank my company's existence on a another company that could not care less if I existed. Much less would I praise and bend over backwards to promote someone else's products other than my own in my marketing materials like this. What a bizarr…

If you have a Mac-only product and a good relationship with Apple, IMO their support can be invaluable. Getting featured and the like is very helpful.

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

#84

Post by 0df8dkdf »

dhagz wrote: post #36
xyst wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> software that takes advantage of the reliability and consistency of that ecosystem probably true ~4-5 years ago, but not so much today. Catalina broke a lot of apps (due to SIP?). Big Sur is likely to break even more existing apps. In one case, it was seen that Apple apps do not obey the same rules that third party developers must abide by ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24838816 ). I use a mbp at this point…

I'm 80% certain that my next computer is going to be either a desktop or a ThinkPad X1 running Arch. A lot of what I do doesn't require a Mac, and frankly I enjoy Linux more.

I'm considering that. Mac has really gone a direction I don't like, and I have being use Apple since the screen is B&W.

However, this is to be expected from organisations that is powered by one charismatic leader.

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

#85

Post by parhamn »

One thing I think people aren't pointing out is how much Figma seems to have done [1] to make the web platform work for them in the way Sketch is describing the Mac App. It almost seems like a technical moat of sorts. Achieving the ridiculous snappiness Figma in browsers is certainly non-trivial.

[1] https://www.figma.com/blog/building-a-professional-design-to...

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

#86

Post by nmfisher »

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.

Separate point, but I absolutely loathe on-screen keyboards. They reduce my phone typing speed to literally 5% of what it used to be on my old Nokia or Blackberry.

Case in point - this comment would have taken me no more than 20 seconds to type, compared with over a minute on this ridiculous iPhone keyboard that gets every third or fourth letter wrong, and just randomly decides to capitalise words in the middle of a sentence.

I’ve been gifted my last few phones, but the next one I buy, I will seriously consider one with a hardware keyboard.

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

#87

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

outworlder wrote: post #22
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.

> 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 like to write native apps (Swift).

I won’t go into why (as everyone here seems to be trying to convince everyone else, who aren’t really listening, anyway. I’m not really looking to change my viewpoint).

Figma is cool. I’m working with a designer, now, and we’ll see how it goes. Not sure I’d really say it was a direct Sketch competitor, though. I think Adobe Illustrator is Sketch’s biggest competitor, and that says a lot about Sketch.

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

#88

Post by PrinceKropotkin »

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.

Fwiw people use sketch for reasons other than designing interfaces. I'd think illustrator would demonstrate your point better.

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

#89

Post by nmfisher »

etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #12

This is great, but I no longer feel that the macOS HIG represents usable design for anybody. Apple's native apps are confusing and inconsistent. XCode is perhaps the worst offender. (Is that because it's okay to ship sub-par experiences to developers? ) My opinion is that Google's UX is now best in class -- things like Google Docs that are just nearing perfection that everyone seems to have no trouble with. Youtube w…

I never miss an opportunity to publicly restate just how god-awful XCode is. I think it is literally the worst developer tool I have ever come across. I don’t think I have ever heard one good thing said about it.

Coming mostly from a Windows desktop background, I only started developing for Apple devices late on. Holy shit, I can’t believe people have been putting themselves through that horrible experience for the better part of two decades.

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

#90

Post by edgyquant »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #16
CognitiveLens wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Not really. It all comes down to a network protocol to sync changes. I collaborated with others just fine in desktop-first apps like CounterStrike or Diablo long before web became a viable platform. The reason MS Office struggles with this is that rebuilding an app that wasn't originally supposed to work in such mode is way harder than building from scratch, and they probably don't really need it that much to push th…

Counter Strike and Diablo are built with collaboration (multiplayer) in mind.
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