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A comment on Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps? by cambalache on Sunday May 17, 2020 @09:50PM (#23217360)
Me neither, I'm not going to lie and say that I had 40 applications opened, but I DID have 5-10 apps using the web with 0 issues (A browser+IRC App + Email Client+MICQ+MSN Messenger+Kazaam/Napster+Winamp in stream mode).

Very very few of the web and desktop applications of today are as snappy and user-friendly as classic Winamp.

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Re:Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps? by worthless-trash on Sunday May 17, 2020 @10:23PM (#23217566)
It really whipped the llamas ass.
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Re:Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps? by millzlane on Sunday May 17, 2020 @11:40PM (#23218074)
It still does! https://www.winamp.com/
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Re:Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps? by jotm on Monday May 18, 2020 @03:25AM (#23219353)
I still use Winamp for offline music. Nothing else is faster.
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Re:Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps? by pdimitar on Monday May 18, 2020 @05:19PM (#23228501)
Try AIMP 3. It's amazing and is an improvement over Winamp.
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Re:Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps? by minkiu on Thursday May 21, 2020 @05:22AM (#23256390)
I did use foobar2000 for a while and it was quite snappy.
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Re:Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps? by marcus_holmes on Monday May 18, 2020 @03:17AM (#23219310)
And yet, people stopped using it.

I used to use it all the time. Now I use Spotify instead. I'm not sure I want to go back to curating my own collection of mp3's again.

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Re:Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps? by mrweasel on Monday May 18, 2020 @05:54AM (#23220394)
Sure, but if you could have Spotify as is, or a light weight player, like WinAMP, both with equal access to the Spotify service, which would you pick?

People aren't using Spotify because the player is fantastic, they use it because Spotify has a huge library, is reasonable price and the player is sort of okay.

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Re:Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps? by marcus_holmes on Monday May 18, 2020 @06:41AM (#23220709)
Totally agree. But the DRM monster rears its head. Everyone is afraid you'll steal their choons if you're allowed to play them on whatever player you like sigh
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Re:Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps? by fxtentacle on Monday May 18, 2020 @07:39AM (#23221102)
Still, all iTunes content can be de-DRM-ed in 500 lines of C code, so it's not like "the industry" actually requires it to be secure.

Like everything these days, it's barely good enough. And why bother implementing your DRM as a 1KB C++ library when you can use a 5MB Objective C framework instead?

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Re:Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps? by bonaldi on Monday May 18, 2020 @06:47AM (#23220766)
Spotify is a case in point: it used to have a fantastic, small and fast native desktop app. It replaced it with the bloated web-based one we see today.
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Re:Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps? by TeMPOraL on Monday May 18, 2020 @09:14AM (#23221889)
That's an artifact of IP laws. The reason you don't have to curate your own mp3s again is because some service managed to find a way to give you a searchable, streamable collection of music that's also legal. But that in no way implies Spotify needs to be so bloated.
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Re:Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps? by GauntletWizard on Monday May 18, 2020 @03:39AM (#23219441)
In a better world, you really wouldn't need to. Winamp was great - The weak point was always the playlist editor, but winamp's interface for simply playing music and seeing what was up next was wonderful. Spotify could provide you with a playlist plugin that simply gave a list of URLs, or let you download one that lasted X hours.
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Re:Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps? by dep_b on Monday May 18, 2020 @03:41AM (#23219452)
Mobile phones happened. Tiny memories while always being connected.
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Re:Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps? by TeMPOraL on Monday May 18, 2020 @09:13AM (#23221868)
Same here. About the only time when by browser + mIRC + WinAMP + IM + Visual C++ 6.0 combo slowed down was when the VC++ was compiling the game I was working on. I would then close the IM, because doing so would speed up the compile times by 1.5x.
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Re:Ask HN: Is there still a place for native desktop apps? by tuananh on Thursday May 21, 2020 @02:29AM (#23255437)
> Very very few of the web and desktop applications of today are as snappy and user-friendly as classic Winamp.

foobar2000?

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