

Size Matters: why universal 'mobile-first' is a bad strategy - brandoncarl
https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/7715e2860bad

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kunle
Well said in general but I have 2 fundamental disagreements

re: #2 - this assumes that the quality of workflow/creation tools have peaked.
Part of what drives the growth in tablets as a work device is simply that an
office filled with tablets is an order of magnitude cheaper to supply than an
office filled with workstations. I'll admit some category of activities (eg
programming, architecture, anything precision related) will resist the shift
to mobile/tablets harder than others, but many white collar jobs don't
actually require desktop grade computing, it just happens to be the case that
desktops/laptops were all that was available and that is where the tools were.
(even this is being pushed - look at the Binary App for development and
Plangrid for architecture)

Re: #3 - Marco argues this point re: HTML5 (and Android) really well. With the
hardware accelerated graphics made possible by iOS 7 (and the better hardware
coming with the next gen iOS devices), you're going to have to work REALLY
hard to create HTML5 apps that "wow" like native ones can.

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brandoncarl
Your #2 is actually self-defeating. Your assumption would be that the desktop
tools have peaked as well. The point that I'm making is that a lot of studies
have shown increased productivity with increased screen real estate and that
many work tasks benefit from more display space.

Re #3: Again, this depends on the type of application you're making. Not all
great interfaces need max out the hardware (think Dots or Medium).

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kunle
Fair on #2 - I don't think the desktop tools have peaked though. Just that the
quality on mobile/tablets is growing faster.

The studies you cite will also have the built in bias of comparing a 3 - 5
year old computing paradigm with one that's had a quarter century to mature .
. .

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brandoncarl
The studies are actually desktop vs desktop. Big screen versus smaller
screens.

As for #2, we'll see where things head. I'm just seeing some refocus on better
desktop UX that I hadn't seen in a few years.

