Re:WebGPU Fundamentals
by jeroenhd on Saturday April 15, 2023 @11:53AM
(#35581760)
All of this is perfectly possible. End users don't seem to want to use these features for native apps for some reason, though, and developers seem to have all switched to the web instead of building native experiences.
It makes sense: native apps need to be developed for Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, and maybe Linux. Web apps need to be developed once. Android apps will work on Android, ChromeOS, Linux (after some setup), and Windows, but I doubt Apple is going to add an Android runtime to their platform any time soon.
App stores are on every major platform and custom URIs for sharing app state and views are implemented on phones already. Most people seem to run their desktop applications either full screen or nearly full screen. Pin the Windows task bar to the top of the screen and you've basically got yourself a tab bar. I don't know about macOS, but Android and Windows will start clearing caches and temporary files automatically under storage pressure. Sandboxing applications is available on all platforms as well.
I don't want every website to become a native application, though. I don't trust most websites enough to download native code from them. Let's not go back to the ActiveX/Java applet days where you needed to download some scary code for every website you wanted to visit.
I don't see why I would benefit from WebGPU support, I think I'll leave it disabled by default. It's probably one of those technologies that'll be useful for platforms with overbearing control (i.e. how game streaming on iOS is made possible). Maybe some small itch.io games will make use of it so I don't need to download Some Guy(TM)'s native executable every time I want to try a small experimental game.
It makes sense: native apps need to be developed for Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, and maybe Linux. Web apps need to be developed once. Android apps will work on Android, ChromeOS, Linux (after some setup), and Windows, but I doubt Apple is going to add an Android runtime to their platform any time soon.
App stores are on every major platform and custom URIs for sharing app state and views are implemented on phones already. Most people seem to run their desktop applications either full screen or nearly full screen. Pin the Windows task bar to the top of the screen and you've basically got yourself a tab bar. I don't know about macOS, but Android and Windows will start clearing caches and temporary files automatically under storage pressure. Sandboxing applications is available on all platforms as well.
I don't want every website to become a native application, though. I don't trust most websites enough to download native code from them. Let's not go back to the ActiveX/Java applet days where you needed to download some scary code for every website you wanted to visit.
I don't see why I would benefit from WebGPU support, I think I'll leave it disabled by default. It's probably one of those technologies that'll be useful for platforms with overbearing control (i.e. how game streaming on iOS is made possible). Maybe some small itch.io games will make use of it so I don't need to download Some Guy(TM)'s native executable every time I want to try a small experimental game.