Kottke on WebOS

In GoogleOS? YahooOS? MozillaOS? WebOS? Jason Kottke discusses a bit of what he thinks a WebOS would look.

He specifically mentions Gmail, Flickr (did I tell you how I think Flickr is probably the best web app ever?), “web iTunes”, and two generic ones:

Newsreader. Read sites while offline (I bet this is #1 on any Bloglines user’s wish list). Access your reading list from any computer with a browser (I bet this is #1 on any standalone newsreader user’s wish list).

File backup. A little WebOS app that helps you back up your files to Apple’s .Mac service, your ISP, or someone like Google. You’ll specify what you want backed up and when through the browser and the backup program will take care of the rest.

I’m curious to see if Alex’s and Scott’s Feedlounge emerges as the WebOS’s newreader app (I think it likely will).

And for backups? I was up talking to the guys at FiveAcross, who’s “interfaces” are Mac and Win desktop apps (their CEO, Glenn, was the guy behind iPhoto 1.0 and iMovie 1.0 so I think he knows something about nice apps). That made me realize that one could connect to and push “control panels” to the Desktop. This in combination with the normal web browser route.

Then from the very beginning we (TextDrive we) have thought that Strongspace could have a nice desktop app that’s essentially a focused browser. I also love the email-photos-into-Flickr feature so much that I want to email files into my backup space as well.

And with Vitalsource’s desktop app interfacing with a rails-based store, interesting times are ahead.

{Now the whole idear of a “WebOS” is not what I’m really talking about, more the integration or smearing of boundaries between things: like how fraser’s flickrexport is the only way I take pictures out of iphoto now, and then I don’t even email links to like the parents, they just grab the RSS feeds … geeks.}

·:· Posted 23 August 2005, 19:33 by Jason Hoffman to Stuff  |  

  1. great article, thanks for the pointer

    — ichigo    23 August 2005, 20:20    #
  2. Yes. I’m not that convinced about the web OS thing, not yet. The trend is building around web services (very different from an OS), with a good opportunity for web-aware desktop applications (your “focused browser” idea). Just look at things like MySQL Administrator, communicating with a MySQL server over a TCP/IP port, what’s the difference? None.

    Welcome back to the client/server world ;-).

    — padawan    24 August 2005, 09:23    #
  3. Do you guys have an API for Strongspace™?
    I’m learning Objective-C and I’d give a try for a remote backup app (and yes, I could do it for Win and Linux as well, I already know C#)

    Off to strongspace.com to find out for myself

    — victor    24 August 2005, 09:53    #
  4. The API is SSH/SFTP/SCP/rsync ;)

    — Justin French    25 August 2005, 05:31    #