> I was recently thinking that operating systems should ditch their custom desktops in favor of a browser based UI.
Here's the really funny thing though, if you just think about it for a second:
Whether browsers become as powerful as operating systems, or operating systems become as convenient (for users and developers) as browsers,
The end result will be exactly the same.
Yep. Consider how we use browsers vs. native apps right now:
- I can open a browser and say type twitter.com and get the exact same experience on ANY device, right away, along with all my data. This is good.
or
- IF a native app is available, I have to download it first, and then, I just have to launch that app directly every time I want to use it. I get a far more responsive UI, better integration into the rest of the operating system, and the native app can support more offline capability than it could if it was running in a browser. This is good too.
Now obviously what browsers are missing is the UI responsiveness, efficient hardware performance, and OS integration.
What native apps are missing is the convenience of typing in a web address, and they're more difficult for developers to provide the same experience on every OS.
Where we stand right now, it will take WAY more work to get web apps on the same level as native apps. Lots of wheels to reinvent.
It will take far less work to make the discoverability and acquisition of native apps as convenient as typing in a web address. So why not work towards that instead?
> Now obviously what browsers are missing is the UI responsiveness, efficient hardware performance, and OS integration.
> It will take far less work to make the discoverability and acquisition of native apps as convenient as typing in a web address.
I don't see that as the case at all. The UI libraries are just the tip of the iceberg.
In fact, I think CSS is better suited to hardware acceleration with modern GPUs than these native libraries, which date back to the '90s, are. That's because they're declarative instead of based on imperative systems like GDI that were designed for rendering on old CPUs.
Just compare using Facebook/Twitter/Reddit in a browser vs. their respective native apps on any device.
Other than the initial discovery/download delay for native apps, the web apps currently have no advantage over the native versions.
If people could instantly start using a native app just by typing say "Facebook" what reason would they have to go into their browser? Does anyone currently even do that? Go back to the website after they've installed the app?
My contention isn't that the browsers of today are superior to native apps. My contention is that a properly architected browser can make better use of modern hardware than native apps coded to legacy frameworks can.
As a counterpoint these "imperative systems" don't need hardware acceleration to be responsive. (why the hell does responsive mean "looks good on my phone" nowadays?)
Drawing everything on CPU and overdrawing/changing state like crazy (in kernel mode, even, for GDI!) is very much not responsive and not efficient. It only seems that way because (1) graphically, those apps are so simple, as the systems were designed for '90s hardware; (2) desktop CPUs are so fast that you can be really slow and still remain responsive.
Here's the really funny thing though, if you just think about it for a second:
Whether browsers become as powerful as operating systems, or operating systems become as convenient (for users and developers) as browsers,
The end result will be exactly the same.
Yep. Consider how we use browsers vs. native apps right now:
- I can open a browser and say type twitter.com and get the exact same experience on ANY device, right away, along with all my data. This is good.
or
- IF a native app is available, I have to download it first, and then, I just have to launch that app directly every time I want to use it. I get a far more responsive UI, better integration into the rest of the operating system, and the native app can support more offline capability than it could if it was running in a browser. This is good too.
Now obviously what browsers are missing is the UI responsiveness, efficient hardware performance, and OS integration.
What native apps are missing is the convenience of typing in a web address, and they're more difficult for developers to provide the same experience on every OS.
Where we stand right now, it will take WAY more work to get web apps on the same level as native apps. Lots of wheels to reinvent.
It will take far less work to make the discoverability and acquisition of native apps as convenient as typing in a web address. So why not work towards that instead?