The disconnect between the Mac and the Web

February 19, 2009 by Sam McDonald

I have done a small amount of both mac development and web development, which means I have a foot in both doors. This makes me a master of neither, but makes the disconnects very clear.

By both talking to, and seeing the work of great mac developers, it is easy to see their opinions of the web applications aren't too high. Arguments of how drag and drop doesn't work, and other complaints about the non-native feel of a web app are commonplace. Now this isn't surprising, people are writing mac applications for a reason. It is perfectly fine to think the web is a terrible place for your mac app, it probably is. The problem comes when mac developers start to interface with the world.

Things, a task manager for the mac, has a great interface, and is an amazing overall product from what I have heard. But when it comes to my daily workflow, I haven't even given it a shot. The problem is simply this: I have to be on the same network as my computer if I want to synchronize my list. This is simply useless to me and a waste of time. To make this work properly I have to synchronize my phone ever time I leave the house, and this isn't something I want to be part of my daily workflow.

To keep inline with the discussion of task managers, there is also OmniFocus. OmniFocus was one of my favorite mac applications well before the iphone even came out, and I purchased the iphone app the second it came out. There are two main problems with the path they have chosen. Omnifocus sends data using .mac (or webdav) in way that is just unusably slow. If I wanted to have my grocery list at Kroger I would have to start syncing and walk around for about 2 minutes (my average sync time). Again this is not very useful.

In the end I chose to go with Remember The Milk. It is a nice application, but no where near as powerful as Things or Omnifocus at organizing thoughts and tasks. The reason is when I press the sync button, my phone gets the update in under 10 seconds every time.

In this situation, I have chosen a much less powerful product just because they approached the web in the right way. Bounjour and .Mac just aren't going to cut it today, and mac developers need to adapt.