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A comment on The mobile app is going the way of the CD-ROM: To the dustbin of history. Parent comment

Re:The mobile app is going the way of the CD-ROM: To the dus... by georgieporgie on Wednesday November 09, 2011 @08:21PM (#3218406)
That sounds like the arguments I used to hear from desktop devs back when web apps start to appear.

And it still holds true in many cases. Microsoft Outlook, in many ways an example of both great and horrible desktop software, still holds the email client majority: http://www.campaignmonitor.com/stats/email-clients/

Web apps are great when you get along with the designer's UI decisions. When you have a fast network connection (that's improved with specific web apps and offline modes, but it's by no means generally applied). When the servers are working well.

Mobile apps share the same advantages and disadvantages, but they're multiplied tremendously. I lose my mobile signal in most stores I go into, for example, and on an awful lot of secondary roads throughout the Northwest.

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Re:The mobile app is going the way of the CD-ROM: To the dus... by curveship on Wednesday November 09, 2011 @11:50PM (#3218942)
Outlook? The "majority" email client? Really? From your source:

"The fine print

The email client a person is using can only be detected if images are displayed. This can give an inflated weighting to email clients that display images by default, such as Outlook 2000 and the iPhone. It will also provide a lesser weighting to those that block images by default such as Gmail and Outlook 2007. Those email clients that aren't capable of displaying images, such as older Blackberry models and other mobile devices cannot be included in this study."

Outlook isn't nearly the majority email client, it's just the one most likely to not block img bugs.

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Re:The mobile app is going the way of the CD-ROM: To the dus... by georgieporgie on Thursday November 10, 2011 @11:11AM (#3220565)
Outlook isn't nearly the majority email client, it's just the one most likely to not block img bugs.

Do you have anything to support that claim?

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Re:The mobile app is going the way of the CD-ROM: To the dus... by bphogan on Wednesday November 09, 2011 @10:52PM (#3218790)
Agreed. And for some apps, where you need to work offline, native is great. But for apps that require a network connection to work, I don't see the point of a native app.
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