Re: Further development on Windows?

Jeff,

As someone who is moving toward doing more on the Web, I would answer that yes, there is still room left for desktop apps. The issue is that you cannot always be connected, and you need some basic things on your computer, not on a Web site. For me those include my diary (in Shadow), my writing tools (Shadow for outlining and a good word processor), my financial manager (Quicken), and my calendar (Pimlical) and my contacts (Palm Desktop today, but soon apparently to become Pimlical as well). Now I am moving toward backing up my files onto the Web (just Quicken so far, but more is likely to come soon), but the basic apps need to be on my laptop/handheld so I can use them wherever I happen to be, regardless of connectivity issues.

So for me at least, I definitely want Shadow local, although if it has an online extension that would let me maintain information between my portable and the Internet (a la Evernote) I would certianly use that as it gives me the benefits of both worlds.

 Bert Latamore
Freelance Editorial Consultant




________________________________
From: Jeff Mitchell <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Thursday, March 12, 2009 11:12:25 AM
Subject: Re: [shadow-discuss] Further development on Windows?


On Thu, 12 Mar 2009, Bert Latamore wrote:

# While we have you around, I wondered if you were doing any new 
# development on Shadow, and particularly on the Windows version. I keep 
# hoping for a version that has more of the abilities of the Palm version, 
# including outlining formats and icon use. Maybe you should take a page 
# from CESD and consider developing a new multi-platform version of 
# Shadow. Clearly the two dominant handhelds are the iPhone and 
# Blackberry, so you want to be on both of those, and an expanded Windows 
# version should also have a market. I certainly would be happy to buy a 
# new license for a windows version with functionality closer to that on 
# the Palm.

I hate to say it, but I think the Palm OS version is in 
'stationkeeping mode' -- I'll keep supporting it, but it seems unlikely 
I'll do much dev for it. The platform is essentially dead, and people are 
not buying software for the OS anymore. That era has wrapped up.

I'm hoping the Pre will do well, and that they offer a useful 
development platform for it, and maybe I can start fresh on there (and 
possibly tie it right into existing Shadow Desktop if they have a sync 
option.) But it does sound like they're more working the web angle -- 
phone syncing to web apps, not to desktop apps.

Further of course, making a web app version of Shadow would get 
you data enabled RIMs and iphones (but not native, of course.)

The big issue there is.. I think theres a bunch of task manager 
and project management apps and systems on the web, so it would be an 
uphill battle against entrenched applications. Possibly. Maybe they're no 
good, or too big and complex, or tied to other things, or any number of 
issues.

Is there still a space for standaline desktop (Windows, OSX, 
Unix/Linux) task manager, to-do and PM type apps? Or go web, and is there 
a space there?

jeff

--
If everyone would put barbecue sauce on their food, there would be no war.

   

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]