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by morsecodist 310 days ago
I totally agree. I don't get why people feel so strongly that native apps are better. The web technologies we have are great both from a developer experience perspective and a UX perspective. People hate on electron apps but I think this is mostly due to bloat from electron. I hope Tauri closes the gap it's been great for me so far.
2 comments
dontlaugh 309 days ago
The UX is nowhere near close to native apps, particularly on platforms that take UX seriously like macOS, iOS or Gnome.
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morsecodist 309 days ago
There are some great native apps out there and a lot of them do things you couldn't do on the web, but nowhere near close seems like a stretch to me. There are some great web apps out there. And while there are great native apps made with love there are also perfunctory, rushed, clunky ones that could have just been a website.

People often overlook some of the functional UX the web brings to the table. For example: on the web I get consistent search and text highlighting behavior, consistent notifications, consistent navigation behavior (back buttons, history), I can tab to focus (usually), and I can use plugins to customize the content. Even the idea that you can reset the application state with a refresh is something I wish I had on some native apps.

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jazzypants 309 days ago
Can you give some examples, please? I can't think of a single thing that cannot be overcome by good design.
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dontlaugh 309 days ago
They never look and feel exactly like native apps, even the ones that try a bit.

Some widget will be rendered wrong, they'll use the wrong font (or even hinting!), right click may not work as expected, they won't use multiple windows correctly, etc.

Even React Native gets some of this wrong, although few use that on desktop.

If you're a user that appreciates consistency on your OS, all of this will stick out and annoy you. And you'll end up using Apple's Mail.app over GMail's UI.

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skydhash 309 days ago
Things.app, Bear.app, and a few others from the macOS side are nice example of UX.

While the web can be great for RAD, the native side gives you raw control when you want it. And actual desktop UI widgets, like table, list, and windows.

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