Postfully Yours

David Heinemeier Hansson announced today that offline web applications are getting too much attention. Assuming this isn’t a late April Fools joke, it is simply wrong.

Imagine using a laptop that randomly crashed, regularly slowed down, and was only available 50% of the time when on the go. Few of us would tolerate this (well, there is Windows…).

For some web applications, this kind of connectivity is fine. In fact, most web applications have targeted areas where this is not a problem. But for the new wave of Office 2.0 applications, it’s a deal-breaker. You can’t leave your documents on an online word processor if you don’t know when you’ll be able to access them. Offline access means a 5-10 year forward shift in adoption of these applications.

Moreover, the new frameworks are not just about connectivity. They’re about breaking down the limitations of the browser. Allowing full integration with desktop software, richer ui options, and more flexibility in functionality are all critical moves in their own right.

This may be the key move towards breaking the network out from the browser (and its historical limitations). This is about introducing the power of increasingly ubiquitous connectivity to the full scope of computing activities (along with the continued expansion of what those activities are).

So, for those who can’t imagine anything better than Firefox over a cellular modem, you probably don’t need these new frameworks. For the rest of us who both want better results now and a more complete and connected experience going forward, these frameworks are great news.