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Why the future is local app

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Re: Why the future is local app

#41

Post by dust-jacket »

palata wrote: post #23
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.

> This article looks a bit superficial to me. Yes it is, I totally agree. > The cloud has definitely advantages, like having the same data on all devices That's not an advantage for the user at all, is it? > and it provides some kind of backup. You can backup user data in an offline-first app. Better even: you can let the user backup their data themselves! > The mentioned downsides could be adressed by better softwar…

> Better even: you can let the user backup their data themselves!

Whilst that's better for a small audience of techy types (most here, I'd guess), you know that's not true for most users, right?

Like people used to lose work on hard drives and laptops that they hadn't backed up all the time and its much, much rarer now (OK, I don't have data beyond anecdata but still).

Re: Why the future is local app

#42

Post by palata »

gbalduzzi wrote: post #36
palata wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This article looks a bit superficial to me. Yes it is, I totally agree. > The cloud has definitely advantages, like having the same data on all devices That's not an advantage for the user at all, is it? > and it provides some kind of backup. You can backup user data in an offline-first app. Better even: you can let the user backup their data themselves! > The mentioned downsides could be adressed by better softwar…

> That's not an advantage for the user at all, is it Of course it is an advantage. I tend to access most of my apps and services from both the PC and the smartphone, having data shared across the two is a deal breaker for the very vast majority of them.

oh sorry, I understood "running the exact same code everywhere".

Sure, sync between devices is a nice feature. But it can totally be implemented with offline-first apps.

Re: Why the future is local app

#43

Post by palata »

dust-jacket wrote: post #41
palata wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This article looks a bit superficial to me. Yes it is, I totally agree. > The cloud has definitely advantages, like having the same data on all devices That's not an advantage for the user at all, is it? > and it provides some kind of backup. You can backup user data in an offline-first app. Better even: you can let the user backup their data themselves! > The mentioned downsides could be adressed by better softwar…

> Better even: you can let the user backup their data themselves! Whilst that's better for a small audience of techy types (most here, I'd guess), you know that's not true for most users, right? Like people used to lose work on hard drives and laptops that they hadn't backed up all the time and its much, much rarer now (OK, I don't have data beyond anecdata but still).

> you know that's not true for most users, right?

I do yes. It's good to have a choice. Many times the reason there is not a proper local export is that it would take more work to implement properly, and it doesn't bring money to the company.

Again: companies exist to maximise profit. When making the product worse (or not making it better) improves their margin, they go for that. They don't care about the users, that's a big lie. A company fundamentally cares about profit. If competition or regulations mean that their profit is correlated to the users satisfaction, then they will have to work for that. But they don't do it "because they care about the users", ever.

Re: Why the future is local app

#44

Post by smahs »

There was a time when local apps written in binary compiled languages were notably faster to run, but notoriously difficult to write and scale across platforms. Both of these have improved but the JS/CSS run times used for local web apps (V8/Blink and JSCore/Webkit) are now fast enough for well written code to not notice any difference for many use cases. I think soon most SaaS apps without much of a deep tech moat (not easy to replicate) will be labelled as rip-off or anti-patterns.

Re: Why the future is local app

#45

Post by palata »

vrganj wrote: post #38
euroderf wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and Organic Maps and Maps.Me do the same - download entire countries or regions. It is SO tremendously useful when traveling. Have not tried CoMaps yet.

Maps.me, Organic Maps and CoMaps are all the same family. Maps.me used to be an open source project, when they took it closed source and tried to commercialize it, the last open source version was forked and is now known as Organic Maps. Then the Organic Maps maintainer started acting sketchy, introduced a paid partnership with Kayak and generally not behaving in a very community minded way. Organic Maps was forked a…

Yep, that's the beauty of open source: "what do we do if we end up disagreeing with the maintainers?" -> just fork away :-).

Re: Why the future is local app

#46

Post by palata »

dust-jacket wrote: post #40
palata wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever tried Organic Maps or CoMaps? Last time I tried with Google I could only download a relatively small area, and it would only be available temporarily. With CoMaps, I can download entire countries and keep them forever. That's pretty different.

You're not wrong, but this feels like an equivalent to range-anxiety in electric cars. The area you can download is still pretty large - whole cities, big chunks of countryside. I'd put money on the fact its good enough for most people's uses.

> I'd put money on the fact its good enough for most people's uses.

I don't know anyone (and I mean exactly zero) who ever used the offline feature of Google Maps. Online is good enough for people who almost always have an Internet connection. What happens when they don't is that they don't have access to the map.

People who care about having offline access (because they live in a place where they don't always have Internet or just because they care) don't bother using the Google offline feature. They use proper offline maps instead. Maybe in parallel to Google Maps: it's possible to have Google Maps and CoMaps.

Re: Why the future is local app

#47

Post by inigyou »

palata wrote: post #46
dust-jacket wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not wrong, but this feels like an equivalent to range-anxiety in electric cars. The area you can download is still pretty large - whole cities, big chunks of countryside. I'd put money on the fact its good enough for most people's uses.

> I'd put money on the fact its good enough for most people's uses. I don't know anyone (and I mean exactly zero) who ever used the offline feature of Google Maps. Online is good enough for people who almost always have an Internet connection. What happens when they don't is that they don't have access to the map. People who care about having offline access (because they live in a place where they don't always have I…

I've used it. What happens is the app mostly keeps working as normal during connection dropouts (in between cell towers while travelling) instead of getting stuck loading or displaying an error. It's the exact same experience, not a separate offline experience.

Re: Why the future is local app

#48

Post by inigyou »

springtimesun wrote: post #29

This is true for me, but I wonder if it’s true for most. An alternative framing is not that apps moved to the cloud because they were faster or more convenient but that apps moved to the cloud because they became “free” by you paying with your attention or data. It’s worth reframing the hypothesis to “The future is (paid) local app” and see if you still think it holds.

I don't mind paying a few bucks for value. But the market for lemons applies. Mostly when you spend money you just get the exact same shitware you can get for free, so I usually suspect that's going to happen.

Re: Why the future is local app

#49

Post by inigyou »

gbalduzzi wrote: post #34
amelius wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole paying with your data thing should become a payment option, and governments should enforce the availability of multiple payment options with no unreasonable price differences across the board. (And there are ways to find out what your data is worth in dollars.)

Meta has the option if I'm not mistaken, but my guess is that it is very, very rarely used.

Because it's a decoy option. They really want your data, not your money, so they set the price high.

Re: Why the future is local app

#50

Post by inigyou »

palata wrote: post #26
jonathanstrange wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

> it would be best if developers all over the world boycotted proprietary platforms entirely. Note that Linux and Android, from your list, are open source. > For true cross-platform, you need to develop for 5 platforms I would argue that anyway , you should develop for multiple "kinds of devices". Writing the same code for a desktop computer and a smartphone is fundamentally a mistake: I don't want to slide big butto…

Android is closed-source but with some open-source components, for only some of which they'll actually follow the license and give you the source code.
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