[emehrkay]

Nice I love Trello. Im curious as to what decisions were made while programming the desktop version that prevents it from bing a simple cross-platform web app. I know there are custom scrollbars etc, but it has to be more than that

[mhp]

When you say desktop version, I am guessing you mean the web version? Trello is a cross-platform web app, so it works if you go to trello.com on your iPhone or iPad. Sometimes people just want a native experience though. Try the iPad app each way and you'll probably see why.

[bobbygrace]

trello.com, a.k.a. the "desktop" version, is device-agnostic so that it will actually work on any just about any laptop, smartphone, or tablet. You're getting the same code on every device, so it's cross platform in that sense. The custom scrollbars on the web are just a webkit thing. See: http://css-tricks.com/custom-scrollbars-in-webkit/

That said, we want to create the best experience for your device, and nothing beats the experience of a native app. Try them side-by-side. Each native app is written in its native language (Obj-C, Java, etc.). It's more code, but they just turn out better that way.

[emehrkay]

I call it desktop version because full functionality seems to only work with a mouse pointer. I do believe that the things that do not work with a pointer could work with touch

[stuartmemo]

All this development when a great web app already exists makes me sad. This just seems like development for development's sake. Rather than using that engineering effort to make one amazing product, complexity is increased, and bugs are fixed more slowly than if their attention was focussed toward the web app.

[veidr]

Wow, as an end user, I think you are so wrong.

I think multi-platform development is more important than it has ever been. Since these days the data lives in the cloud anyway, I want to pick up whichever of my various devices fits the situation and get the absolute best user experience that the company can design.

Web apps still don't (and still won't in 2023) provide the very best software user experience on any platform, even the desktop. Certainly not on mobile.

When choosing among competing cloud-based services, I always award bonus points in my evaluation to services with good iOS and Android native apps. Even though I don't currently use very many apps on Android, if there is a native app for it in addition to iOS, I feel more confident that the company behind the product gets it that users need native interfaces on the platforms they care about.

I think this is a key reason, perhaps not well-understood, why services like Evernote, Trello, and others are doing so well.

E.g. my wife uses Evernote all the time on Mac and iPad, but there is no way she would use the web interface on either one. She just wouldn't use Evernote.

She may not consciously think 'I prefer services with good native apps in addition to their web interfaces', but she does. (And I suspect so do many people.)

[mhp]

You should really try the Trello app on an iPad. I think you'll find that it's a fundamentally different experience than a web app could ever offer.

[cstrat]

I have been using Trello daily for my own project management tracking. Saving the website as a 'webapp' on the iPad was OK... you could get by. However many things were buggy - if you had a card with many records scrolling sometimes scrolled the background faded page rather than the card itself. Entering text into comment fields was OK until you hit backspace, at which point the page scrolled somewhere else and you couldn't see the text anymore.

I love the app. Now I just need the ability to move cards between boards.

[rythie]

The only thing I can see really missing from the web app on the iPad is dragging cards from one list to another.

However, after trying the iPad app, it is a much experience than the web app was.