iMovie, and to a lesser extend lightroom and photoshop, are still far beyond the reach of web-based apps, sure, but then you really picked the exceptions out of the lineup.
Keynote will still fare far better as a standalone app, but a sufficiently cool webapp could end up in, if not the same ballpark, at least right next to it. Apple is a nice example for this stuff; they've been building excellent web apps as well, pushing HTML standards to the front, and working on letting webapps do things they couldn't before (example: <canvas>). I don't think this discussion started with apps like iMovie or even keynote in mind. Also, flex, silverlight, and even javafx aren't very good tools to build something like iMovie with either. The apps would have to ask for some pretty hefty permissions, and getting something like multi- screen management right is going to be tough in these sandbox VM style environments, you need to work closer to the metal. Those apps are the obvious exceptions, but they are nothing like what your average app, especially in the corporate world, needs to do. On Dec 22, 5:57 pm, "[email protected]" <[email protected]> wrote: > > Fabrizio, in theory you are right. > > > Practically speaking, webapps beat desktop apps almost all > > the time in usability. > > > They are far easier to install and keep up to date, they > > get the internet-enabled thing right whereas most desktop > > based apps don't (I'm talking about applications that > > integrate networking features such as connecting to > > friends, not that something 'runs on teh interwebs', > > that's kind of a given for webapps, and either irrelevant > > or a bad thing, as it means you're dependent on a > > connection!), they tend to be far more usable by people > > with accessibility issues than desktop apps. They tend to > > crash less. They tend to look better. They tend to be > > easier to write. > > This largely depends on other factors. For instance, let me > enumerate a few desktop applications I'm using: Keynote, > iMovie, Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Photoshop. They are excellent > applications, look very elegant, are perfectly usable, I can > hardly recall a crash. None is web based: but their makers, > Adobe and Apple, have got a lot of commitment and experience > on usability, elegance and robustness. It's mostly a thing > of culture: for instance, Apple has been able to build a > culture-compatible ecosystem with other small corporates > able to do the same (e.g, back to the app I routinely use, > Omnigraffle is a fantastic little piece of graphic designer, > made by a small company). > > You're right for the installation thing - that's clearly a > plus on the usability side, even though you install once and > run many times, so I find a bit less relevant (unless is a > showstopper). Yet, it's not a perfect thing since it's still > easy to find stuff that doesn't work with Firefox or Safari. > > For the connectivity with friends class of applications, I > can't speak - I don't use any technology for that, since I > connect to friends personally and consider FaceBook and co. > totally useless, so I don't know what advanced stuff you can > do with them. In my limited knowledge, I consider them more > dynamic web sites than web applications, and I don't have > any objection in using HTTP / HTML / etc with web sites. If > somebody is interested in how I differentiate between web > site and application, it would be an interesting topic. A > few months ago there has been an interesting discussion in a > mailing list grouping together people interested in RIAs > with multiple technologies (all the most important) and > while most of people agreed about such a differentiation, it > has been impossible do define it formally. My take is that > the difference is in purpose: precisely whether the thing > has been primarily meant as a communication channel among > people or not. But it's not exhaustive as I can think of > exceptions. > > -- > f.g. > > -- > Fabrizio Giudici, Ph.D. - Java Architect, Project Manager > Tidalwave s.a.s. - "We make Java work. Everywhere." > weblogs.java.net/blog/fabriziogiudici -www.tidalwave.it/blog > [email protected] - mobile: +39 348.150.6941 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
