From the Web to Desktop Using the Apple WebKit

In what is surely an odd and likely isolated occurence, I’ve recently come across two applications that take a Web-based application and create a desktop application out of them. I can’t imagine that Web 3.0 (or whatever the next big thing will be called) will be a flood of Web-enabled applications that all exist inside of their own exclusive browsers. What makes this possible though is Apple’s WebKit that makes it incredibly easy to build an application using the core of Apple’s Safari Web browser. The first thought that ran through my mind was, “why in the world would a person even want to do this?” After using them for a few days though, it has given me something to think about.

Michael McCracken’s WebMail was the second of the WebKit apps I found. And, to be fair, WebMail isn’t really a finished application. Michael wanted to simplify his experience with gMail so he simply used WebKit to build a browser with no toolbar or any other expected features of a browser and made it load gMail upon launch. I never thought this would be something I’d want, but after using it, I realized how nice it was having a dedicated gMail application. That said, WebMail could use a few features. I’m all for “Less is More” but, in this case, Michael has left everything out. Hopefully Michael or somebody else takes what has been done so far and finishes it. I’ve already committed myself to using it, so any improvements would only be frosting on the cake.

Pyro takes 37signals’ Campfire chat application and actually improves it, unlike WebMail which doesn’t add much to the overall experience of using gMail. When you launch Pyro, you actually feel like you’ve opened a real app. That may have more to do with the differences in design between 37signals and Google than anything else. Where Pyro shines is how they’ve integrated it into the entire Mac experience. You can see the unread count of messages in the Pyro icon in the dock. It bounces when there is a new message and you get a menu to navigate quickly from one room to another. When I first heard about Pyro, I thought it was the result of pranksters making fun of 37signals. Moving a Web app from your browser to a dedicated desktop app defies common thinking after all.

Of course the sad — or would it be great — thing about both of these applications is that because they are built using Apple’s WebKit, you’re only going to enjoy using them if you’re a Mac user. I have to believe the Windows side has a similar, though maybe not quite as easy, way to accomplish the same results for Windows users.