<story><title>Apps are too much like 1990&apos;s CD-ROMs and not enough like the Web</title><url>http://www.hanselman.com/blog/AppsAreTooMuchLike1990sCDROMsAndNotEnoughLikeTheWeb.aspx?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ScottHanselman+%28Scott+Hanselman+-+ComputerZen.com%29</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>marknutter</author><text>I posted this comment in another thread about apps, but too late for it to really get any responses:&lt;p&gt;- app discoverability sucks ass&lt;p&gt;- apps require updates&lt;p&gt;- app development is unnecessarily tedious and must be done x number of times for x platforms&lt;p&gt;- iOS apps need to be approved by Apple, and you have to play the game by their rules if you want to charge money for them&lt;p&gt;- apps lack basic features of browsers - no universal find, no back/forward buttons, no bookmarking of pages or states, no organizing apps into tabs, etc.&lt;p&gt;Let&apos;s be honest: not counting games, the vast majority of the native apps out there would work just fine (or better) as websites. Add API&apos;s like access to the camera and there&apos;s even less reasons to develop a native app.
Apps will be relegated to games and highly sophisticated interfaces, which if I had to guess probably represents around 10% of all the apps out there (heck, most of the games out there could probably be done in the browser).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>randomdata</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&quot;app discoverability sucks ass&quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Discoverability sucks ass. Period. Unless you already have a strong network, or lots of advertising dollars, the chances of anyone finding your software, of any kind, is low.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&quot;apps require updates&quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;While that is true of some implementations, there is no reason why apps cannot be downloaded on each execution. You could even use a URL bar to show the network location of the app, if you want to.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&quot;app development is unnecessarily tedious&quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;A modern web application is no better in this regard. In fact, most of the recent frameworks that have sprung up to solve the problem of building web apps all seem to be loosely based on the same ideas from OpenStep that are used in popular native frameworks.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&quot;apps lack basic features of browsers - no universal find, no back/forward buttons, no bookmarking of pages or states, no organizing apps into tabs, etc.&quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I mentioned it in an earlier discussion, but it seems worth repeating: The web browser is just another platform API. There is no reason why, say, CocoaTouch could not include those things by default for all apps too.&lt;p&gt;The whole web vs. native discussion is pretty silly because it all comes down to a few specific implementations that we keep pointing to, when anyone can change the state at either end of the spectrum on a whim.</text></comment>
<story><title>Apps are too much like 1990&apos;s CD-ROMs and not enough like the Web</title><url>http://www.hanselman.com/blog/AppsAreTooMuchLike1990sCDROMsAndNotEnoughLikeTheWeb.aspx?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ScottHanselman+%28Scott+Hanselman+-+ComputerZen.com%29</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>marknutter</author><text>I posted this comment in another thread about apps, but too late for it to really get any responses:&lt;p&gt;- app discoverability sucks ass&lt;p&gt;- apps require updates&lt;p&gt;- app development is unnecessarily tedious and must be done x number of times for x platforms&lt;p&gt;- iOS apps need to be approved by Apple, and you have to play the game by their rules if you want to charge money for them&lt;p&gt;- apps lack basic features of browsers - no universal find, no back/forward buttons, no bookmarking of pages or states, no organizing apps into tabs, etc.&lt;p&gt;Let&apos;s be honest: not counting games, the vast majority of the native apps out there would work just fine (or better) as websites. Add API&apos;s like access to the camera and there&apos;s even less reasons to develop a native app.
Apps will be relegated to games and highly sophisticated interfaces, which if I had to guess probably represents around 10% of all the apps out there (heck, most of the games out there could probably be done in the browser).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>canes123456</author><text>Users determine what is successful, not developers&lt;p&gt;- Web app discoverability is much worse&lt;p&gt;- Updates is a minor issue for users&lt;p&gt;- App development is not the user&apos;s concern&lt;p&gt;- App store approval is a net win for users. It eases their concerns about malware.&lt;p&gt;- Browser functions are not useful in most apps and the add an extra layer of abstraction&lt;p&gt;Native app can be made into just fine web apps but that is not always good enough. The best apps are still native.</text></comment>