Seriously, there’s an irrational exuberance in the online apps space that beginning to sound like a droning din. Slate, for example, is espousing qualities to net-based apps that probably aren’t as big a deal as they sound, going so far as to declare Outlook dead because Google Mail now supports Gears:
Now that Gmail has bested the Outlooks of the world, it’s a good time to assess the state of desktop software. There are some things that work better on your computer (your music app, your photo editor, your spreadsheets), and there are some that work better online (everything else).
Everything else is better online? You mean like iMovie, or podcast production, or something secretive, or multitrack recording? See, cloud humpers like this guy from Slate only look at software from the vantage point of office productivity–and EVEN THERE, the rationale of the Cloud’s superiority is overstated. The Cloud offers no tightly-integrated, productivity-boosting desktop environment, after all. Drag and drop? Nope. Personalized formats and preferences? Not so much. And what about CONTROL?
Over the last few years, we’ve seen many programs shifting from the first category to the second—now you can get spreadsheets and photo editors online, though they’re still not as good as programs hosted on your computer. But e-mail has crossed the line completely. Hosted services like Gmail are now the most powerful and convenient way to grapple with a daily onslaught of mail. If you’re still tied to a desktop app—whether Outlook, the Mac’s Mail program, or anything else that sees your local hard drive, rather than a Web server, as its brain—then you’re doing it wrong.
Oh, really? Never mind the fact that most people who choose Outlook or Entourage do so because of the benefits of Microsoft Exchange. Not to mention the fact that it simply may not be a good idea for Google to be the “world’s hard drive”. Limited contigous storage is one drawback of the Google Apps / Cloud approach. So is privacy.
Please, talk about the net-based apps with all of their qualities, pro and con, instead of all this mindless babble about how Google killed Outlook… Come on people, think critically!
