I chuckled when the point dawned on me, albeit a bit later than it should have. But the comparison breaks down when you consider the different ways Desktop OSes and Mobile OSes handle the relationship between display resolution and application resolution.
That is to say: we have come to expect (or have been required to accept?) that mobile applications operate on a full-screen basis only. This is logical for tiny screens, but causes problems when the definition of 'space' differs in the phrase "Use ALL the space!" This is not the case for desktops.
In Desktoplandia, we operate in a windowed (or tiling) environment that allows application resolution to be less-than-or-equal-to the display resolution. Some applications may choose to require a full-screen approach, but that is their choice. Other applications may actually place a maximum size on a given window, or not allow resizing at all! Hopefully the developers chose to limit their app for a good reason, but that flexibility is open to them. And while obviously a "maxes out at 800x600" application might be under-utilizing a 1920x1080 monitor, the environment is one wherein we have come to accept that this will happen from time to time. Furthermore, when it does happen, it's not always a loss in the usefulness or experience provided by the application.
So while the post succeeds at lampooning the dismay of mobile developers for a moment, I don't feel it fully captures the difficulty in being forced into an ever-changing, forced-upon-you full screen mode in an environment where people are less accepting of a "Well my app just happens to run smaller on your huge screen" approach.
> "Well my app just happens to run smaller on your huge screen" approach."
Android has adequate methods of dealing with that (density independent pixels, Relative positioning/Box model of layout) so I still think the source argument holds.
That is to say: we have come to expect (or have been required to accept?) that mobile applications operate on a full-screen basis only. This is logical for tiny screens, but causes problems when the definition of 'space' differs in the phrase "Use ALL the space!" This is not the case for desktops.
In Desktoplandia, we operate in a windowed (or tiling) environment that allows application resolution to be less-than-or-equal-to the display resolution. Some applications may choose to require a full-screen approach, but that is their choice. Other applications may actually place a maximum size on a given window, or not allow resizing at all! Hopefully the developers chose to limit their app for a good reason, but that flexibility is open to them. And while obviously a "maxes out at 800x600" application might be under-utilizing a 1920x1080 monitor, the environment is one wherein we have come to accept that this will happen from time to time. Furthermore, when it does happen, it's not always a loss in the usefulness or experience provided by the application.
So while the post succeeds at lampooning the dismay of mobile developers for a moment, I don't feel it fully captures the difficulty in being forced into an ever-changing, forced-upon-you full screen mode in an environment where people are less accepting of a "Well my app just happens to run smaller on your huge screen" approach.