WKWebView, an Electron alternative on macOS/iOS

Re:WKWebView, an Electron alternative on macOS/iOS by jf- on Wednesday December 26, 2018 @07:01PM (#18765998)

From a cost-benefit point of view there’s nothing in it for slack. They’d have to rewrite and maintain three separate versions of the same app they already have, and what would the payoff be? It would mildly please a handful of bellyachers, who would then immediately move on to the next grievance. For the majority of users it would be wasted money and effort.

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Re:WKWebView, an Electron alternative on macOS/iOS by saagarjha on Wednesday December 26, 2018 @10:15PM (#18766965)

My argument is that this is not actually all that much effort, and it would make far more people happy than you’d realize. While not everyone can verbalize their complaints about Slack, I’m sure many feel the performance issues; and they would certainly notice if Slack happened to load five seconds faster or their computer’s battery lasted a couple of hours longer.

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Re:WKWebView, an Electron alternative on macOS/iOS by jf- on Thursday December 27, 2018 @06:54AM (#18768958)

I think you’re underestimating the work involved, plus switching from electron to native won’t make people’s battery last hours longer.

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Re:WKWebView, an Electron alternative on macOS/iOS by saagarjha on Thursday December 27, 2018 @12:39PM (#18770994)

> I think you’re underestimating the work involved

This was the amount of work necessary for me to ditch running Slack in a Safari tab, and basically consists of being able to talk to people and send them attachments–the things I do 99% of the time. If I need something advanced like voice calling I’m more than happy to fire up actual Slack. Assuming libslack (or whatever it is called) handles the core protocol and communication layer, I don’t see why it would be difficult to write a bit of Cocoa code around it; I could even pull some of this straight from the iOS app.

> switching from electron to native won’t make people’s battery last hours longer

It does, though. Opening Slack on my computer reduces the battery life by around two hours; a well made native app will have a reduction that can be measured in minutes. Native apps are just better at idling and using fewer resources when they are in active use.

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Re:WKWebView, an Electron alternative on macOS/iOS by ec109685 on Tuesday January 01, 2019 @01:23PM (#18801432)

Which application as complicated as slack do you run 24x7 on your computer, with a persistent connection to a server updating the ui that only reduces your battery by a few minutes versus two hours with slack?

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Re:WKWebView, an Electron alternative on macOS/iOS by apple4ever on Wednesday December 26, 2018 @08:56PM (#18766628)

There sure is.

They've have an app that doesn't suck for one. Which you know, would help conversions.

Its not hard to write a Mac app, and its even easier to maintain it. ESPECIALLY if you already have an iOS app.

There is no reason not to just make a decent Mac app. NONE.

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Re:WKWebView, an Electron alternative on macOS/iOS by jf- on Wednesday December 26, 2018 @09:04PM (#18766681)

Using caps isn’t a substitute for having a point, nor is it a refutation of the effort involved to make three separate native apps instead of one. Also you’re not supposed to use caps here.

I don’t think it sucks, most users don’t think it sucks. You represent a tiny, vocal minority.

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