A few months ago, Wired’s cover story was The Web is Dead, Long Live the Internet. The headline was a tad overreaching but the basic idea was that browser based applications are on the decline while native applications (applications built specifically for a platform, like a Mac email application vs. Gmail) are on the rise. The initial thought made me uneasy because I enjoy the ubiquity of web-based applications, how they aren’t tied to a given computer, device or operating system and that you can get at your stuff from literally any computer. I also personally enjoy web development and don’t want to see it go away any time soon.
Recently, because of the slick user experience many of them offer combined with the inherent challenges / limitations of web development, I’ve been more and more drawn to native apps. I never use Twitter’s website, opting for native apps on the iPhone or the Mac. I prefer Facebook’s iPhone app over their horrible web user interface. I never even think of using Evernote’s web interface (does anyone even know it exists?). I’m starting to like Outpost over Basecamp’s web interface. Today I even installed Sparrow, a native mac gmail client, and I have to say I’m liking the experience so far despite having always loved Gmail.
Why is this? Native apps are less cluttered, usually faster, don’t get mixed up with a million other tabs I have open in my web browser and overall “feel” nicer to use. Will it always be this way for me? I doubt it. I change what I work with constantly and get bored easily. There is also signficant work being done to improve the web experience with projects like Sproutcore.
But the pendulum continues to swing between native and web, rich and thin client, centralized / decentralized and will continue to swing, I’m certain, indefinitely…