Scott Saad

Desktop App Reversal

by Scott Saad - January 31, 2012

Even though web applications are taking over the world, I’m still a fan of the native desktop application. They provide an authentic look/feel to the operating system that makes me feel special. While most of the native apps I use are developer tools, I also regularly use the following on both Windows 7 and Mac OS X:

It’s been my opinion that the PC version has always had a better experience when it came to native apps. However, I cannot say that for Evernote and Rdio. These applications are much better from a usability standpoint on the Mac. Skype is still an absolute disgrace on the Mac (comparatively to the PC version).

So why is it that 66% (yes I know… I have mass amounts of data for my study) of the applications I use have better Mac versions? As a programmer ten years ago, you built applications for the platform you most commonly used. Has anything changed? Probably… depending on how you look at it.

I would bet that programmers are still developing for and on the platform they most commonly use day-to-day. They are developing on the system that makes them feel special. However, I also guess many that were developing for the PC ten years ago may also be developing for multiple platforms now, like the Mac. Are they using a Mac at home too? Have they made a switch? Does your dog really know what your name is?

Are you paying attention? No? Well let me bring it back full circle.

All of this doesn’t much matter as in a few years we’ll all be developing off of machines that run in clouds that serve up rainbow lollypop browser versions of an IDE so we can program in a 6th order language.

For craps sake man. Wake up.

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I'm a software geek living and working in Boulder, Colorado. Follow me on Twitter; you'll dig my tweets if you're into that sort of thing.