@analog_cafe Case in point - the two programs/apps I use most with relation to film photography (outside of the iOS/OSX Notes app) are AnalogExif, a 38MB piece of abandonware on SourceForge (https://sourceforge.net/projects/analogexif/) that hasn't been updated since 2010, and ExifTool, a command line util which is about 5MB. Both are more streamlined and faster to use than any webapp.
@coldkennels From a developer's perspective, it's a whole field of study that's different from native apps, which is why I have to be sure before diving into native apps.
Web apps are seamless with the rest of the web, which is why you may not notice them. Every single social network, inc. Mastodon is a web app. Online payments are web apps, etc.
Web apps aren't the right tool for everything, but they are lighter and more accessible. They could even be better if Apple and G didn't kneecap them
@coldkennels The programming languages and tooling for iOS, Mac, Android, and Windows are different. Plus, there's Linux. All these platforms require some kind of registration and vetting and often payments. This is generally what's preventing me from taking them on. But I can build a command-line tool using the same tech as in the web apps (but that may be a little too painful to use for some folks :)
@analog_cafe ...this sort of scenario was what Java was designed for. I've got a few old Java "apps" sat on the hard drive of this laptop that I've carried forward across multiple systems with multiple operating systems. Is it the cleanest setup ever? No, but it *does* work.
@coldkennels Java was cool, very powerful stuff. I'm not sure I like the containerization like that, though. Same with ActionScript (Flash) and even HTML Canvas. But there's new tech out there that lets us write native components and execute binary code, which is what native apps do. It's a little weird and definitely right for all uses