Why the future is local app • Hacker News Board

Re: Why the future is local app

#11

Post by HPsquared » Thu, Jul 30, 2026, 8:34 AM UTC

ferrouswheel wrote: post #4

bitwize wrote: post #3

The future is you pay $1000 for a "cloud terminal" with 4 GiB of RAM and maybe 128 GiB of storage, and all of your apps live, metered, in the cloud. Arbitrary operating systems, and even arbitrary application binaries, are not allowed, in order to comply with laws and regulations, as well as non-legally-binding policies set by credit card companies in response to pressure groups, on what you may compute and what you…

So why can i still run all my decentralised apps? Where's this magical shutdown the government is going to do? Are they going saturate the airwaves to destroy mesh networks or hunt every mesh node on the planet? Go home with your nihilism.

Simply making something illegal will reduce it by 99%.

Re: Why the future is local app

#12

Post by BiteCode_dev » Thu, Jul 30, 2026, 8:47 AM UTC

I always wanted to do local and offline first app with optional sync, but the difference in amount of work is just stagering.

Now with LLM to do the boiler plate of event logs, healing, retries and testing all that, it's finally reasonable for a side projet.

And the result is great, the UI is reactive, it works in malls with bad signal, you get a no account experience almost for free...

I do all my apps like that now.

Re: Why the future is local app

#13

Post by bombcar » Thu, Jul 30, 2026, 9:07 AM UTC

cryptos wrote: post #5

This article looks a bit superficial to me. The cloud has definitely advantages, like having the same data on all devices and it provides some kind of backup. The mentioned downsides could be adressed by better software archticture or e2e encryption.

The better software architecture is huge - if done right. It's the difference between cloud-only, local-only, and local-first. Not all apps are entirely easy as local-first, but you can often get 80-90% of what you need as that; and leave sync and collisions as rare situations to be handled manually.

Re: Why the future is local app

#14

Post by hexasquid » Thu, Jul 30, 2026, 9:15 AM UTC

I think some people who grew up with web apps didn't know local native apps preceded them.

Re: Why the future is local app

#15

Post by peter_retief » Thu, Jul 30, 2026, 9:23 AM UTC

I am using the older version of raspberry pi 3 B+ to host mail and web services locally behind firewalls. There is a use case here for developing for remote areas that have unreliable internet and power. Still a way to go but there is something in place. This site is a beta running from my lounge at home. https://localboxmail.co.za/software.html

Re: Why the future is local app

#16

Post by reustle » Thu, Jul 30, 2026, 9:25 AM UTC

cryptos wrote: post #5

This article looks a bit superficial to me. The cloud has definitely advantages, like having the same data on all devices and it provides some kind of backup. The mentioned downsides could be adressed by better software archticture or e2e encryption.

Obsidian is just one example of how powerful local apps can be with a generic sync behind them (icloud sync, gdrive, obsidian sync, etc)

Re: Why the future is local app

#17

Post by stephbook » Thu, Jul 30, 2026, 9:26 AM UTC

euroderf wrote: post #9

This really matters in map apps when you're on the road. Apple Maps is all very nice with transit planning but without a solid net connection it lies there mutely. Organic Maps (and others) that use downloaded OSM data work well with nothing more than GPS. You can get a transit plan (trains & trams & buses, and the transfers among them) without up-to-the-minute arrival info.

Google and Apple maps have an offline mode. Just select the area you want downloaded and that's that.

Re: Why the future is local app

#18

Post by nasso_dev » Thu, Jul 30, 2026, 9:26 AM UTC

slightly off-topic but i dont really know how to put it in any other way: everything under this domain feels fake

i am looking very hard for any hint of humanity behind any of it, but all i see is a vibe-coded website, marketing a huge collection of vibe-coded apps by generating articles like this one. even their social media presence (linked on their blog[1]) feels like agents that have been told to role-play on X.com as caricatures of their position/role in the (made up?) company

and i mean.... come on, a $5 web browser??? that's just a wrapper around the system's webview??? why would anyone think this is something worth spending their time building, economically speaking??? even FREE browsers are struggling in this hyper-competitive market. if you make a paid browser it better be the best browser of all time, not some vibe-coded average of every other browser

i agree with the premise, im all for local-first software. but this really feels like the AI-era equivalent of the countless scams we've seen during the crypto-era...

[1]: https://getapps.cafe/blog/a-new-name-behind-the-counter-welc...

Re: Why the future is local app

#19

Post by stavros » Thu, Jul 30, 2026, 9:32 AM UTC

nasso_dev wrote: post #18

slightly off-topic but i dont really know how to put it in any other way: everything under this domain feels fake i am looking very hard for any hint of humanity behind any of it, but all i see is a vibe-coded website, marketing a huge collection of vibe-coded apps by generating articles like this one. even their social media presence (linked on their blog[1]) feels like agents that have been told to role-play on X.c…

Yeah, I read the subheader, saw Claude, and closed the tab.

Re: Why the future is local app

#20

Post by jonathanstrange » Thu, Jul 30, 2026, 9:38 AM UTC

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #12

I always wanted to do local and offline first app with optional sync, but the difference in amount of work is just stagering. Now with LLM to do the boiler plate of event logs, healing, retries and testing all that, it's finally reasonable for a side projet. And the result is great, the UI is reactive, it works in malls with bad signal, you get a no account experience almost for free... I do all my apps like that now…

The problem with native apps are the app stores and their requirements. For true cross-platform, you need to develop for 5 platforms (macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android), each with their own technology, favored programming language and ecosystem, deployment, certificates, regulations, requirements, guidelines, arbitrary app review policies, categories, etc. I'm doing that currently and it's madness.

IMHO, it would be best if developers all over the world boycotted proprietary platforms entirely. (Of course, this is never going to happen, I'm just saying.)