so true. I think there's only been a handful of major paradigm shifts in UI on the web that have justified a complete overhaul of a perfectly good UI (pure HTML -> CSS in the late 90s and then the rise of jquery/ajax and to a lesser extent the shift towards responsive and flat design.)
I guess a big OS is a different beast though as it's a billion dollar project in itself - I think at that point they just tweak a bunch of UI so people think they're getting something new.
I was thinking about this, and it seems like Desktop UIs can be preserved for much longer time than some of the modern web ones.
Once you have the whole application, files and version of the OS it was running on in an emulator, you can practically run it anywhere.
Not so with things on the web :(
Take for example HRBlock - it has (or had?) a desktop version, and web version. I've used to desktop, but moved to the web, but makes me wonder - would I be able to review my data on it, 10 years ahead? Granted... I can pull all the data I need (after all taxes follow specific forms), but there are applications for which this is simply not possible.
Imagine if Photoshop/Maya/MotionBuilder/3DSMax/Word/Office were running exclusively on the web (and to some point some of these do). Now what happens in 20 years? Would someone be able to open the files I've created in them?
Yes, there would be someone... But that one would be the old desktop app, running under some VM, maybe under your new fancy watch/or whatever device - but you can still view it.
But not so about the web. If the application was purely done on the web, and even though you were able to export files/data from it, it comes to a point where you might not be able to show this data in much later years.
I still can run my favourite Apple ][, Oric, and protected mode (unreal mode!) DOS thanks for the fact that the application was all there, boxed, and if you've collected all patches ever released - you can relive it again!
Ahh... enough with the rant, you can't catch the web, it captures you :) lol
wow I had never even considered that angle. We are at the mercy of application servers that necessarily WONT be there in a decade. Would be amazing to see a shift towards running some of these things client-end or on a hybrid client-cloud that let you take images of the application state and datasets. Security is an issue but it always will be - if you could defer a lot of the work to the client you could save costs and preserve the web for future generations. Well - 99% of the web is garbage and meta anyway - the idea that the integral text-only parts of wikipedia can fit on a cheap flash drive amazes a lot of people.
I guess a big OS is a different beast though as it's a billion dollar project in itself - I think at that point they just tweak a bunch of UI so people think they're getting something new.