41–50 of 83 posts
github.com/NebulousLabs/Sia
We're ultimately trying to build a decentralized object store Platform, but our initial approach is a desktop application. We're hoping that the majority of embedded and streamed content on the web is stored on and fetched from our Platform.
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There are many reasons to build native apps in the enterprise IT (business software) world. For certain use cases, access to offline data and fast performance become critical requirements. Think of a traveling sales rep who is on the road and needs access to a product catalog and pricing information to take sales orders. HTML5 doesn't quite cut it in such a scenario.
clearly you haven't seen Breeze http://www.getbreezenow.com/
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Electron, specifically... https://github.com/atom/electron/
Interesting. I haven't used it because they don't support Linux yet. (EDIT: I mean Slack, not electron)
http://www.installmonetizer.com/ Probably funded by YC IIRC.
Evernote? https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/evernote
evernote's motto is "notes everywhere" or smt like that. They are building desktop app yes, but this app is also js and browser extension. not counts. sorry evernote, I loved you though.
It's exactly the sort of service that I want a desktop app for too. I mean, I stopped paying after it deleted a bunch of my content, but still…
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Why couldn't this sales rep use a mobile connected ipad to access a web app with pricing and ordering?
In several industries, sales reps often travel to locations without internet access (such as factory shop-floors, construction sites, mining sites etc). In such cases, the rep simply has to fire up the product catalog, capture orders, take notes etc and then sync up when he returns to an office/hotel room. This is in fact one of the most common reasons for companies to look for native apps.
I'd love to see more of the bleeding edge desktop software like the Adobe stuff, Blender, all the DAWs for Audio, etc. But it feels to me that not very many programmers have the skill to pull something like that off. Also, there doesn't seem to be much of an incentive left to invest into such things.
I would very much want that the mind set changes a little bit. Great desktop software makes a profit from selling to customers who value quality and awesome features. I wonder why that is not enough incentive for ambitious programmers. I only ever hear about developers for mobile and web apps getting a lot of money for things I seriously don't care about.
I have the feeling that we use desktop computers for the same things we used them ten years ago. I can't even remember when I had the last "I need that!"-moment for desktop software. So why can't we reinvent the desktop with software, like many try to reinvent what phones and web apps can be used for?
It's like the desktop computer in this day and age is slowly reduced to a platform (OS) for a platform (browser) for web apps. That's probably why many can get by with a tiny laptop or even a chromebook, which is probably the culmination of that thought.
However, I've not lost all hope. My bet is on virtual reality. If someone can build a really awesome VR application where everybody's like "I need that!!!", I can see how the desktop could return to its former glory, considering that a decent VR needs a ton of compute. But there's still the problem that VR is hard, GPU programming is hard, 3D is hard, parallelization is hard and optimizing is hard.
So are there any pioneers left with an enormous amount of skill and time who would risk to start such a glorious and uncertain journey without some VC guy dropping a few million dollars on the table? Or are we all going to end up as web developers because that's where the capital seems to be?