I recently posted on HackerNews asking "Where do you see web and desktop apps in 5 years?". A lot of the responses boiled down to the web overtaking and dominating the standard brick and mortar desktop app.
And I would argue it already has.
The web of today was the desktop of yesterday
Look at everything that used to be done on the desktop, either a computer or actually a real wooden desktop:
- Calendar
- Contact Book
- Instant Messenger
- Word Processing
- Music player
- Calculator
All of those things have since been replaced by a browser app, I don't need to list examples because you already have chosen. Just about the only thing that hasn't been replaced by the browser is itself.
Pocket
The end of the desktop isn't for our generation
Us, people reading this as it's posted in the last few days of 2014. Will not see the death of the desktop. No, that's reserved for the next generation. The generation born after the internet, after the dotcom bubble. That generation will look back upon us and wonder how we got along without their technology.
10 years ago no one knew what a Facebook was, or what it meant to tweet. Pandora was still a box. Imagine 10 years for today. It's almost impossible.
"And in her ears the little Seashells, the thimble radios tamped tight, and an electronic ocean of sound, of music and talk and music and talk coming in, coming in on the shore of her unsleeping mind."