inessential by Brent Simmons

RSS and desktop apps

Scripting News: “RSS has always been a great basis for a web app. I don’t think it should be a desktop app.”

In one sense, it doesn’t matter if Dave is right or wrong about whether or not RSS readers should be desktop apps, because there will always be people who love RSS and who love writing desktop (or iOS) apps, and they will want to work with both loves at the same time.

I like web apps and I use a bunch of them. I also like native apps. I’m not ideological about one or the other, but I happen to prefer writing native apps for a bunch of reasons. It’s just more fun for me.

As long as that’s true of a lot of people, you’ll continue to see native apps for RSS and for everything else. (Never mind the profitability or not — people will write native apps out of love.)