On Sep 3, 2008, at 5:40 AM, Jared Spool wrote:
You need to read up on Chrome and AIR. Between the two, you now have all of these things in some form. (This spring, Adobe was demoing drag & drop to/from the desktop, cut & paste (using the OS pasteboard servers), file save, local resource utilization (like print dialogs), etc.) It's there. And folks like Nasdaq and Fedex are already developing apps that make use of it.
For the record, we built a fully featured web page editor that is pure JavaScript, using no fancy tricks with Flash, Java or any other web technology at Websketch.com. It's drag and drop, direct manipulation for layout and resizing, multiple Undo and has all sort of features you expect in a traditional desktop app. (Unfortunately, our client got over aggressive with the browser sniffing so we need to get them to remove the limitation to check it with Chrome.) We're also in the midst of finishing a full redesign of McAfee's consumer product line where fully interactive prototypes are built using AIR.
Trust me, I get the developer stuff and am reasonably well versed on what they can and cannot do well.
I think this is a key point. I expect that AIR and Chrome are signaling a major change in capabilities for developers. Interaction designers need to be on top of this, so they can be there to help make great designs. Otherwise, we'll be back in the world of "we implemented it because we could" experiences.
The thing I think you are missing is that Chrome is still a "browser." That's the crux of problem. Unless Google makes an explicit break from being a web browser and being more of an application environment, all I see is a 4th browser that I have to worry about for compatibility checking. That's not what the web design world needs right now.
Worse, if Google adds new functionality that is only available in Chrome, then we have the Microsoft IE situation from 2000-2005 all over again, and even Microsoft lost that battle. So if Chrome is purely web standards based, what exactly is new about it other than performance?
I'm not saying it's not cool. I'm questioning what we're supposed to do with it, and if it's browser #4, I can pretty much tell you not much new is going to be done with it. All we'll do is build stuff that works across all the browsers, and be happy it's faster on Chrome. I'm not sure how that makes for innovative work.
If Chrome is a competitor to AIR then LOTS can be done with it. -- Andrei Herasimchuk Principal, Involution Studios innovating the digital world e. [EMAIL PROTECTED] c. +1 408 306 6422 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
