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Comment by stravid | Hacker News Reader

Why are these simple apps native although they would perfectly work as a web app. I don't want to download something to test it. And I don't want to sign up, regardless of how simple the sign up process is, we have the power to build things were you can get started right away.

Just use Local Storage to get the user started right away. When he decides to sign up you can copy the local data to the server side storage.

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I want to have my tasks off-line, because I don't trust the Cloud, and I know that for 50% of my day (not counting sleep time) I won't have Internet access. I want my data to be accessible in a raw format, so that when I get bored with one application I can easily migrate to another. I want my data to be mine.

I personally like Emacs Org Mode and I use Dropbox to synchronise tasks between computer. It's much more powerful than most TODO/GTD apps I've seen, it doesn't really break your workflow (as a developer, I spend a lot of time in Emacs anyway), it just works and I have full power of a decent text editor embedded in it. That means keyboard macros, incremental search, copy-paste, etc. Some TODO apps, especially web ones, end up in rewriting the capabilities of a text editor, without success. Reminds me of Greenspun's 10th Rule, but applied to Emacs instead of Common Lisp.

For example, WorkFlowy has this amazing look&feel, it's beautiful, simple, functional, but I get angry as soon as I try to write something, because it lacks lots of the basic components of a Windows 'text field' box and also has weird (Mac?) shortcuts that interfere with my text writing habits (the "typical ones", not the "Emacs ones"). At least that was last time I checked (few months ago).

Having to download a native app and having to create an account are two entirely separate matters.

And FTR, part of the advantage of native apps is that they'll never be relegated to "just another browser tab" or lost in a sea of favicons. When I'm going to invest time in a workflow / application / product, I almost always prefer the native app to web app for this particular reason.

Having to download a native app and having to create an account are two entirely separate matters.

Yes they are two seperate matters. But they still have a problem in common: They introduce barriers you have to overcome until you can use / test the app. I guess an app without such a barrier is doing a lot better.

Valid point, this is one of the downsides when you focus on non-native apps. It will be interesting to see if this changes when web apps get more traction. If they ever do.

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