What is a browser to you, Kim? What does it mean? For me a web browser is chrome surrounding a combination of "thin" technologies. It also includes mechanisms for extensibility and sometimes that extensibility can even be whole applications.
What is the browser missing that a GUI to an OS requires: Volume control - up/down mute Network settings - wifi settings are used everyday on mobile systems. Access to power off options - suspend, hibernate, off, restart Selecting a printer (and various settings w/ that) date/time settings - when I travel I change the timezone System updates Local file management Drive management - every work w/ a USB? Display settings - attaching projector, or changing resolution These are all required to be in the GUI. Now, can these all be encapsulated inside the Browser chrome? SURE!!!! But they are ALL necessary components that no current browsers do not handle at all that people need access to on a regular basis. Here's the gotchya ... How do you switch rendering engines if you only have 1 browser? Do you really want to lock the user of your device into one possible browser? Even chromes can have distinctions worthy of switching between. Some users even make these switches dependent on tasks. Here's 1 ... can iTunes be run as a browser-based application? If it can, is it really a browser any more? Further, what do I do if I want the chrome of the browser to be gone? My app to be thick? Where do sidebars, dashboards, or widgets go w/o a "desktop"? While I agree that thin & thick are blurring every day, "the browser" is still distinct from the desktop in too many ways that I think would be missed if the chrome of the browser totally took over the the GUI of a device. -- dave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45492 ________________________________________________________________ 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
