

The Internet interface is dying. - MrJagil
http://lighthouseinteger.blogspot.com/2010_05_01_archive.html#5892668337098426531
Please discuss!
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BoppreH

      What if, in Windows or OS X or linux, whenever you wanted to go to a folder or open a new app, you had to write the name of the folder/app and it's path in the terminal. What a waste of time, right?
    

Actually, it's the opposite. I have been a fan of Launchy for years and I
can't even imagine how I would manage so many applications with icons, or how
I could open a program so quickly.

~~~
rflrob
I keep my Finder windows in Column view, and usually navigate around by typing
(the first few letters of) its name, not dissimilar to how I use the Awesome
bar.

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Tichy
Actually I find my web sites by typing one or two letters, and awesome bar
does the rest.

And it is already possible to put bookmarks to web sites on the desktop.

What is supposed to be the great new replacement for files - a grid of norm
sized icons???

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warfangle
It's meant to address original findability issues with online apps, not
launchability.

The wonderful thing about app stores like android Marietta and the iPhone
appstore is not that they add an icon to tour desktop.

The wonderful thing they provide is a unified way to find, compare, purchase
and launch apps. Something the web - and web applications - both have been
missing for a while. It's the logical extension to Google's mission statement
of indexing the world's data.

The only difference is this time it's adding applications to the mix; seeing
as the web is slowly (but surely) converging with the desktop, this is
actually a bold and brilliant move.

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Qz
The phrase 'is dying' should die. It's not even used in the article itself --
why is it in the title here?

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MrJagil
You are absolutely right, and I am sorry. I guess this was one of those cases
where, if you see something enough, you subconsciously embrace it.

I apologize for the hyperbolic and sensationalistic headline.

~~~
mortenjorck
What I thought the article would be about, though you did touch on it, is how
the prevalence of APIs and data-driven, single-purpose apps have begun to put
a dent in web access of major sites (social media, shopping, news). It's an
interesting phenomenon, definitely something deserving some further
examination.

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vrode
I will miss it if it goes. It is one of those concepts I love internet for.
Everything is leveled, and all websites are equal in some sense of
identification.

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Detrus
Except things like Spotlight and search in Windows are great too. For apps you
don't use often, it's much easier to find them by name, by task, or tag then
by scrolling through a long list of icons. Chrome's omni-bar is exactly that.

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ollysb
The dock at the bottom of my OS X screen very rarely gets used, typing the
name of an app in quicksilver seems much faster.

~~~
snprbob86
That's why I advocate the Dock on the left and auto-hide: to recover those
previous few pixel rows. I have it shrunk down to the minimum size. It might
as well be completely disabled.

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jaytee_clone
There's a place for command-line and there's a place for shortcut. It all
depends on the number of options in an interface.

If you only need to do a few things in an interface, shortcut is better
because it's clean and intuitive. But when you have lots of behaviors (i.e.
millions of potential websites to go to), shortcut just doesn't make sense.
That's where an auto-completable search command-line becomes useful.

Plus, I rarely see people use the address bar the way it was "meant to be" or
the way that the author described it. People either google the website that
they want to go to or the address bar auto-complete it before one finished
typing.

Even facebook has a global auto-complete search box.

Watch it, when the number of frequently-used apps in an iphone reaches a
critical amount, it will make more sense to use app search/run interface.

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tdmackey
"What's the advantage of "installing" an app from Chrome Web Store? When
Google Chrome users "install" a web application from the store, a convenient
shortcut is added for quickly accessing the app."

When I read that I say to myself, "wait, you mean a bookmark?"

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rbanffy
This idea looks so much like the AOL of 1994 (or worse, the MSN of 95) I want
to give up an move to the mountains.

The web is a wonderful construct, a thing we should treasure as it makes
everybody equal. You can put up a site in a couple minutes, make your web app
and put a dent in the universe, and be just a couple keystrokes away from
everybody, just like Google.

It's really disappointing when people want so much a nice walled garden to be
imprisoned within.

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brisance
How is this different from Site-Specific Browsers like Fluid?
<http://www.fluidapp.com/>

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BrianAnderson
Imagine if del.icio.us was not bought by Yahoo and instead progressed to where
we all thought it would be... Basically, it would serve the same discovery
mechanism as app store. You could see what other people were bookmarking and
quickly add it to your bookmarks. Discovery problem solved!

(Damn you Yahoo and your inability to do the MERGE in merger & acquisition)

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TotlolRon
The "page" may be less fashionable than the "store" these days but It ain't
dying. No one is required to buy what "bundle sellers" are selling.

