I'm strongly opposed to apps that are just wrappers for web services. I don't need a wrapper when i could just open a browser i trust patches their vulnerabilities (nod to Firefox). Every electron app eats so much RAM, it's stupid. And in the end, I'm just using a browser making API calls, why do i need the wrapper?
The thing is that it’s just not a browser making API calls. The wrapper is so that you have access to lower level APIs, like access to the filesystem. This gives the Electron app more power than a browser.
I thought so as well - up until yesterday when I tried desktop version of Microsoft Outlook. Such an awful experience. Just trying to pick an available meeting room was surprisingly more difficult than on the modern web. And I can hardly see how even Microsoft could bring the web experience to desktop in the future without somehow leveraging the existing online version.
> I tried desktop version of Microsoft Outlook. Such an awful experience. Just trying to pick an available meeting room was surprisingly more difficult than on the modern web.
That has nothing to do with Electron. You can totally bork an UI on the "modern web", too. There's nothing stopping the Outlook team from porting the old room picking interface to the web version.
I've only used the Outlook web app as a fallback (at $work it used to be available using 2FA, and I'd use it if I needed to check my email real quick but didn't have my laptop -- and, thus, "real" Outlook -- with me) so maybe it's an exception. But most of the time I really wish people would stop trying to bring the web experience to desktop :).
The desktop version being awful (as is just a lot of stuff MS makes) is no excuse here tho. It can be done better and there's no inherent thing to either implementation that prevents it.
