[deleted]
I'm done making desktop applications (2009)
21–30 of 211 posts
Re: I'm done making desktop applications (2009)
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Electron is the worst of both worlds. I have never paid for an Electron app, and never will. Horrid UX.
> I have never paid for an Electron app Your employer most likely has.
Sure, and so has my government. But I can only control what I personally pay for.
Re: I'm done making desktop applications (2009)
#23I was curious why AI wasn't mentioned. Then I noticed the date: 2009.
And, I also I think many of the mobile and web apps will end up in prompting in the next few years.
Re: I'm done making desktop applications (2009)
#24Nothing in this article is wrong, but worth noting that pre-AI, the companies that most significantly transformed the way we use our computers (Slack, Spotify, VS Code, etc.) did ship desktop apps.
Re: I'm done making desktop applications (2009)
#25Nothing in this article is wrong , but worth noting that pre-AI, the companies that most significantly transformed the way we use our computers (Slack, Spotify, VS Code, etc.) did ship desktop apps.
All of those examples are web apps, two of them started on the web itself, and none of them transformed anything about how we used our computers (slack replaced a number of competitors, spotify is iTunes for the web, and VS code is a smaller jetbrains)
Re: I'm done making desktop applications (2009)
#26> However, the existence of pirates is a stitch in my craw, particularly when any schoolmarm typing the name of my software into Google is prompted to try stealing it instead:
I wonder whether Google, in its Don't Be Evil era, ever considered what they should do about software piracy, and what they decided.
I'd guess they would've decided to either discourage piracy, or at least not encourage it.
In the screenshot, the Google search query doesn't say anything about wanting to pirate, yet Google is suggesting piracy, a la entrapment.
(Though other history about that user may suggest a software piracy tendency, but still, Google knows what piracy seeking looks like, and they special-case all sorts of other topics.)
Is the ethics practice to wait to be sued or told by a regulator to stop doing something?
Or maybe they anticipate costs and competition for how they operate, and lobby for the regulation they want, so all they have to do is be compliant with it, and be let off the hook for lawsuits?
Re: I'm done making desktop applications (2009)
#27Nothing in this article is wrong , but worth noting that pre-AI, the companies that most significantly transformed the way we use our computers (Slack, Spotify, VS Code, etc.) did ship desktop apps.
“Desktop Apps”? I’d say pre-Electron, the ones that existed that far back shipped desktop apps, but for the past 10-15 years it’s all been Electron slop, which hardly qualify as “desktop apps” in my book.
If anything, it’s my very faint hope that AI would give companies - especially non-software companies - the bandwidth to release two real native apps instead of just 2 builds of a shitty Electron app. Fat chance though, I think, not least because companies love to use their “bRaNdInG” on everything - so the native look and feel a real app gives you “for free” is a downside for the clowns that do the visual design for most companies.
Re: I'm done making desktop applications (2009)
#28Not off to a great start... The "look how many steps it takes to convert shareware users" is insanely overblown.
1-4. Google, find, read... this is the same for web apps. 2. Click download and wait a few seconds. Not enough time to give up because native apps are small. Heavy JS web apps might load for longer than that. 3. Click on the executable that the browser pops up in front of you. No closing the browser or looking for your downloads folder. It's right there! 3.5. You probably don't need an installer and it definitely doesn't need a multi-step wizard. Maybe a big "install" button with a smaller "advanced options". 3.6. Your installer (if you even have it) autostarts the program after finishing 4. The user uses it and is happy. 5. Some time later, the program prompts the user to pay, potentially taking them directly onto the payment form either in-app or by opening it in a browser. 6. They enter their details and pay.
That's one step more than a web app, but also a much bigger chance the user will come back to pay (you can literally send them a popup, you're a native app!).
Re: I'm done making desktop applications (2009)
#29I would like to go back to 2009 =) The world was definitely simpler, and Bitcoin was cheaper =)
So true, no real SaaS, no heavy cloud infrastructures
Re: I'm done making desktop applications (2009)
#30I wonder what the numbers say about desktop applications now, and how much the arrival of Electron changed things up here. Nowadays, it seems to be that mobile apps have the "best metrics" for b2c software. I'd be interested to read a contemporary version of this article.
“Metrics”
This reminds me of a past job working for an e-commerce company. This wasn’t a store like Amazon that “everyone” uses weekly, it was a specific pricey fashion brand. They had put out a shitty iOS app, which was just a very bare-bones wrapper around the website. But they raved about how much better the conversion rate rates were there. Nobody would listen to me about how the customers that bother downloading a specific app for shopping at a particular retailer are obviously just superfans so of course that self-selected group converts well.
So many people who should be smart based on their job titles and salaries, got the causation completely backwards!