Popular doesn't mean good. In fact Electron is born out of the idea that developer productivity and comfort is everything and performance is a secondary concern.
These apps seem to be popular with device manufacturers. I have the displeasure of using two such apps, both have crap usability and custom UIs that don't make any effort to integrate with the platform. One of them doesn't even respond to the quit shortcut.
> These apps seem to be popular with device manufacturers.
All apps written by device manufacturers are crap, regardless of what they are written in. It has nothing to do with Electron, just with the fact that they only know how to do hardware, and are clueless on the software side.
The apps function correctly, it's the UI that is the problem.
It's modern looking, but obviously not native and doesn't respect some platform idioms or shortcuts, so all in all it's a subpar experience. This is completely related to Electron and would not happen for a native app, where the framework takes care of the look & feel and integration.
If every app were written like this, we'd end up with scores of slightly inconsistent apps, all of them trying to be unique and cool and resulting in a mediocre platform. i.e. Windows.
Also, Tesla's dashboard user interface is apparently built on Qt. I honestly would not feel safe in a car built around Electron, even if it's just the UI.
Telegram for desktop. Easily the most usable "modern" (read: not IRC) instant messaging client available today in terms of features, responsiveness, and portability.
These apps seem to be popular with device manufacturers. I have the displeasure of using two such apps, both have crap usability and custom UIs that don't make any effort to integrate with the platform. One of them doesn't even respond to the quit shortcut.