feels like there’s never been a better time for a new desktop OS to emerge…
there’s less platform lock-in than ever, thanks to web apps (and maybe Wine or VMs)
macOS isn’t so great anymore, windows is full of ads
what would it look like to design an OS for the web era? for the ai era?
three things i’d try:
1. rethink the interface — there’s no way that current OS designs that’ve lasted 25 years are the end state of computing (this was the thesis of arc, btw!)
2. treat web apps and native apps the same. treat web docs and native docs the same.
3. new horizontal primitives. when you stop to think about it, it’s *so cool* that copy and paste actually works across every app. what’s the next clipboard, or the next url?
@nate idk why but this topic is so incredibly interesting to me.
I wrote about how web apps should be treated as native apps (https://www.eikedrescher.com/blog-articles/getting-rid-of-the-browser) which I think you‘ve read before :)
I could also imagine an OS optimized for creation (vs consumption). Explored this here briefly: https://twitter.com/eikedrescher/status/1591170371562209286?s=46&t=5T4Nxl0M6xWs3-pCBi0yEA
The idea of rethinking an interface that feels so established to all of us might be the most interest design problem out there if you ask me
@eikedrescher yes! Huge fan of this line of thinking.
Making web apps feel like native apps is one angle. There’s also:
- making native apps feel more like web apps (tabs! Find in page! Linking!)
- making web files feel more like native files (why can’t I make a folder that contains a notion doc, photoshop file and git repo?)
So much to explore……
@nate great point about making native apps feel like web apps!
This makes we want to jump into figma and explore.
To me that‘s what‘s really interesting about browser company - Arc is super nicely done, but the potential of rethinking the interface on an OS level is the really big deal here
@nate @eikedrescher I totally feel you!
What botheres me even more is that all the data is mostly locked in proprietary apps.
Everything would be so much better with proper standards.
Why can’t we e.g.:
* create an event in our notes and see it in the calendar
* add a todo inside an event than show up in our todo app
* Write about a friend in a journal and get direct access to the info in our contacts app and maybe chats in messengers
* and so on …
@philoup @eikedrescher I wonder if the solution to this is a more capable file system, such that apps store their data as files rather than in proprietary backends or sqlite databases.
what would you need to do to make the humble filesystem a competitive way for apps to store their data?
sync? realtime collab? better indexing? new file formats to standardize storage of data that historically isn't stored as a file, like chat messages and todos?
@philoup or maybe the solution is to just make apps more scriptable, such that you (or a developer) can write integrations between the software you use, yourself?
"the API is just as important as the UI"
@nate @eikedrescher Very good question! I would tend to more and better file standards but a good API might be the better appron some cases.
I really like the idea of the block protocol at least for block based interfaces on the web.
@philoup oh this is very cool