Umm, no, absolutely 100% backwards. Inbox was designed 100% as a goal directed product based on making the user more efficient and satisfying his needs, technical decisions came later. Product design was done by product managers and interaction designers by taking into account usability study feedback. We didn't just have engineers making stuff up cause they liked it, our users told use what their email pain points were. None of the internal presentations on Inbox's development by the designers mention the client implementation details. It's not the inmates running it, it's the people outside the asylum. The basic facts on the ground. Most access to email is going mobile. The design is to fit the users as they are coming.

If we designed product features based on technical decisions, we would not have had so much trouble, because we would have simply picked the lowest common denominator we could get away with to deliver the product and not pushed on sharp edges in the stack.

We take a design based on how the product must or should behave, the engineers do not run the show.

As an aside, I value the Web not because of implementation details (I'm not a particular fan of CSS or JS) but because of high level properties it has that native mobile apps do not have. That's why I'd rather see a return to web applications over time. Web apps produce positive net externalities that native silos do not.

These don't matter for the short term, or the individual, but they matter collectively over the long term for society. I may not be able to access content siloed to apps 30 years from now, but I'll probably still be able to find Web content indexed and stored on archive.org

I view developing for the Web as planting trees in a forest that is logged for value over time by society, by businesses, that extract value. We are caretakers of it, and should put back into it so that the those who come after us can derive value as well.

I'm not sure how developing a native iOS app, for example, will help our grandkids the way making an open ecosystem and publishing lots of content that can be freely indexed, mashed up, and repurposed will. I imagine future archaelogists will have a much easier time digging up value from the Web than trying to dig up App Stores for information.

I totally agree, especially with the last two paragraphs.

Native mobile apps rub me the wrong way if they could have been open standars web apps, with some reasonable definition of open standards.

The web is a repository of knowledge, with also a lot of cruft, and that knowledge should be accessible well into the future.

It is just amazing that you can write this post after having created, essentially, a native Chrome application.

Your head is filled with Google jingoism tailored to almost fit the ideals you're trying to spout, but you failed to create an open application.

I thought it was explained rather well. They are working on making it work on other browsers.

But even if they stopped at Chrome only support, that is still better than Android/Windows/iOS app, as at least you can install Chrome on anything.

Do you give crap to every iOS developer out their for releasing only for 1 platform? Or is this just "Google is evil" cargo-culting?