Mobile Apps, Desktop Browser Only

onshaper

Hey all,

Just curious why Onshape team decided to go with mobile apps but browser only for desktop.

Thanks
Luke

lougallo

@Onshaper The browser was the platform we are after for ubiquity but on mobile browsers and hardware are just not able to run webGL well if at all.  The server side services that power Onshape are still the same used on any platform and we have chosen to use the app frameworks to provide the proper UI and user interaction layer that mobile provides.  Eventually the web experience on mobile might match that of desktop one day and we will see what works best.  You might remember when the iPhone first shipped it was web-apps only then they changed to the entire App infrastructure we see today across all mobile platforms.

onshaper

Hi LouGallo, that makes sense to me but I guess my question is this:

It seems like Onshape has decided to build apps for the mobile platforms so they will perform their best. But arguably the desktop will be where the most work gets done, so shouldn't it perform its best?

Thanks for taking the time to answer my question.

lougallo

@Onshaper The web is our platform.  We don't have an alternative on mobile yet.  Our goal if full cloud so the browser delivers that...to desktop however it does not deliver that to mobile.  There is some challenges with installed software as we all know and mobile will need to stay current or the app will not work as we iterate forward.