The browser as a platform

[czc]

Just like tv didn't kill radio, both desktop and web apps will coexist for a long time to come.

They still need to run on something.

 

[Mouse]

Because a browser was not designed to display e-mails! An native application built for the express purpose of displaying e-mail already knows how--it just needs to know what!

Most of the mail I receive is HTML formatted anyway. Therefore, it would be the mail client that would need to have extra code to figure out how to display the mail.
And if you're on Outlook, MS in their infinite wisdom decided to use Word as the engine that would format email as html - including lots of non standard html, that might not display properly if it was viewed on a program designed for displaying html. Its another form of lock in :erm:

...if you're using a web app.

If you're using a dedicated app with decent offline capabilities (like most modern mail clients), you still have access to your historical data, and can compose new items to be uploaded when the connection finally does come back/you make other arrangements.

Sure, Gmail on the web has some rudimentary offline capabilities but (and correct me if I'm wrong here), they only work if the site happened to be open at the time your connection went down. And you can't compose new e-mails for later sending if you have no Internet connection, can you? (serious question; I actually don't know if you can)

You can compose mail while offline if you're using Chrome, as well as have mail download in the background for offline viewing. The browser does not even have to be open for this to work. It leaves a system tray app running to handle it if you enable the offline setting.

 

[eltherza]

Unfortunately (or rather fortunately) you are one of a dying breed, as the world is done with thick clients. Have a look at Windows 8.

I'm not so sure, lets look at your phone for a second - do you use your phone browser to:
Chat?
Email?
Twitter?
Facebook?

I'd say that almost everyone has an "app" that does that... Actually, the company that is worth more than MS is running with "thick" clients - and making a huge profit off it too.

as the world is done with thick clients

The world is also done with "web apps" as well is moving onto "any platform can play with us - write your own web app/iphone app/"thick client". Go look how amazon has done it, understand why amazon is considered to be leading in the www space [amazon web services].

Twitter has done it as well:
Use - think client, website, web apps [AIR if you want]. More people use thick clients on twitter than the website - and twitter allows this. The winning formula is "any 'platform'" - that way you have both bases covered in case the critical mass prefers thick over thin [pretty much every iOS user perfers thick over thin].

 

[Nocturne]

@Nocturne, how do you feel about Outlook web access then?

As I pointed out, OK in a pinch - before I had a smartphone and tablet with built in e-mail clients, I needed to check my work e-mail and it was too much of a mission to boot up my notebook and connect to my company's VPN so I could connect with the full Outlook.

I'm not a huge fan of Outlook in general though, as "MS in their infinite wisdom decided to use Word as the default e-mail editor."

And all the e-mail I send is plain text unless there's an absolute necessity for formatting--which there seldom is. Most of the mail I receive yes, is HTML. Strange how people would rather use 20kb to 30kb to convey a message would could be conveyed in under 5. (Just because you can, does not mean that you should)

Hope I've covered all the replies since I've been away. ;-)

 

[alloytoo]

I'd like to see less applications through web-browsers especially at work. Frankly they're crap, laggy and make Java (and gosu) programmers rich.

Give me a dedicated purpose written client anyday or a decent thin client environment where updating the application means a single server update.

Anyway I forsee a move away from centrally hosted services to secure peer to peer networks.

 

[Nocturne]

/me bows out

OK, guys. Great discussion! I honestly found it really interesting. I didn't mean to troll, and I hope nobody got that impression of me, but it's time for Noccie to embarrass his namesake and go sleepies now. Night all!