Sunday, May 04, 2008

Why I'm grumpy about apps that aren't browser based

Application implemented in the browser automatically have these feature (unless the designer actively disables them, which alas, they sometimes do):
  • use anywhere - it's hard to find a computer that doesn't have a browser
  • variable font size - really small fonts are really annoying
  • text search - I expect it to be available - it it's not, it's annoying
  • copy and paste from the text - with formatting
  • multi-platform - Windows, Mac & Linux, obviously, but also, in may case, Palm
  • spell check on text input
  • view source - I like to know how things work
  • save page - it's sometimes convenient to have a local copy
iTunes is a good example of this problem. I'd like the text to be larger. It's search is good, but being able to search the visible text of the screen would be even better.

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