Desktop Means Web - Inessential ->

What Brent is saying is absolutely correct. I’m trying to think about the last time I’ve heard the term referred to in the sense of a Desktop native app. All the new Desktop apps I’ve started using in the past few years have been a website. Doing Taxes with the government, Jira, Slack, CRM systems etc.

Ever since the ‘web 2.0’ craze it seems that Web is the default go to for Desktop applications. Where most of the applications I mentioned before have mobile app equivelants. Slack doesn’t make you use the website, they have an app for that. The Dutch government doesn’t make you do your taxes on a mobile website, they have an app for that.

I wonder why this is not happening yet for mobile. Is it discoverability? Or is it usability? In fairness, I’ve yet to find a mobile website I prefer over a good or even a mediocre mobile app. Where as most Desktop web application were miles better than the native equivelants of the past.

It will be interesting to see how this will change over the coming years, if progressive web apps are enough, or that it will require Application Stores to carry websites too to solve the discoverability issue.