Inferior-But-Good-Enough isn't Good Enough
Kent Beck writes his take on the newly announced Google Chrome OS (here http://www.threeriversinstitute.org/blog/?p=273). In it he refers to web apps as "inferior but good enough". This really describes most of the current web apps I've used. The Google suite is good for something that's free. But anyone who has worked in a full MSOffice shop (and is not blinded by anti-MS vitriol) will agree that Gmail, Google Docs, etc isn't even in the same league as Office. I prefer native iPhone apps to mobile web sites, I prefer Notepad++ to Bespin, TweetDeck to Peoplebrowsr. Web apps just aren't as robust or powerful as desktop apps.
Maybe it doesn't matter. Is cheap, fast and worry-free enough to outweigh powerful and robust? Well...no. I generally use the web to flit around but launch native apps when I'm done screwing around and need to get serious. I'll bet you do the same, and I don't see this changing anytime soon.
