The Cross-Platform Myth | Hacker News Reader

The Cross-Platform Myth

marcuscavanaugh.com

16 pointsmcav11 comments

I think one area in which this might not be true is gaming. Since so much of games are abstracted away from the OS anyway, it's not too hard to provide an identical interface on multiple platforms. It's not the best example, but I can't avoid a shameless plug for my checkers game [1]. It's in java, and I like to think the UI isn't horrible on either platform.

[1]http://www.tranquilapps.com

I think you're right. Gaming certainly seems like it would suffer a lot less from this, because the interface doesn't generally function like that of a typical Windows/Mac/etc. application with a familiar look and feel. Your game mostly gets away with it, but it's always subtle things that give away a non-native app. In your case it's using control instead of the apple key as a modifier key, which is not the expected behaviour for a mac application.

Edit: But you're right it's quite a nice interface.

My Mac-using business associates have told me a hundred times that my (Java Swing) program is an abomination unto the eyes of Jobs and will never sell until I embrace the One True Way to do a Mac interface. (I'm a Windows programmer at heart and my Mac port most certainly has issues -- some of which I'm cognizant of, and some of which I addressed over the years.)

But regardless of my friends' feelings on the matter, my stats just do not say that Mac users are rejecting the program. They convert at fully twice the rate of Windows users. If anything I need to look at what I've screwed up in doing a Windows-y interface that wasn't Windows-y enough, apparently!

Yeah. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your position), users are often content with "good enough". The apps I mentioned (Adobe CS4, Firefox, MS Office) obviously haven't suffered in the marketplace. People complain, but enough buy that it really isn't a huge issue.

That said, having a truly native interface can't hurt: if you were to pit a native interface against a non-native one, the non-native application would have a hard time competing.

But I think that the three examples you mention have very little competition ( or competition that has major problems) for OS X users.

I doubt it's hurting your sales much, but just because your Mac conversion rate is 2x your Windows conversion rate it doesn't mean it's not hurting at all. Mac conversion rates for shareware seem to be way higher overall (certainly been my experience).

Do you have any competition? Mac users will tolerate a Java Swing app. But once a native Cocoa (or even Carbon) equivalent app (most features/functionality being the same) comes out, they'll switch.

I hate using Java Swing apps. It's an accumulation of minor irritants that cause this hatred:

1. the inability to interact with OS X Services;

2. copy/paste not working exactly like Cocoa apps;

3. font rendering being messed up;

4. the fact that the menu system is usually different than a Cocoa app and that I can't customize keyboard shortcuts as easily.

However, the presence of all of these irritants doesn't mean I won't tolerate a Java Swing app if I absolutely must, because there isn't another feature/functionality equivalent application out there.

To trot out a well worn cliche, the only intuitive interface is the nipple. I have recently been sat in front of a Mac; I do not find it particularly intuitive, and had to ask for hints as much if not more than I would in front of a Windows box (I am primarily a Linux user today, though I have used many OSes in the past - VMS anybody?).

What Apple have is a consistent interface. This is the real point here, that if each OS has a consistent interface between native applications, then a cross-platform application will be at a disadvantage because by definition it will be inconsistent with most platforms. This is true to some extent.

But these days the real competitor to a native app is not a cross-platform app - it's the cloud. It would be interesting to see some data as to whether people prefer an inconsistent cloud app (say, gmail) to a native consistent app (say their native mailer). Absent any data, I am not sure what can be learned here.

It really depends on the application. If it is in a niche with little competition the users are going to be less interested in eye-candy. But if it has a number of competitors on the same platform the one that doesn't 'conform' is going to do less well than those that do.

I'd love to read this article if it would just LOAD :/

Sorry, haven't had much blog traffic before and hadn't checked to make sure WordPress caching was on. Should be up now.

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