General confusion and ambivalence about the continued value of stand-alone have gone mainstream as of…now. That’s because German developer Gernot Poetsch has released an alpha of a new RSS reader he calls Readomatic. What’s so weird about this app? Well, it’s a standalone application of Google Reader, which is itself a replacement for a standalone RSS reader. Google Reader’s great advantage is that it isn’t standalone — you can use it on any computer connected to the Internet and still have it keep up with all your readings.
We’re now in the age of applications that take the limited functionality and GUI of a web app and give it the restricted, non-portable feature set of a standalone app. We’re through the looking glass here, people. Still, it looks kinda hot. I’m not going to stop using Vienna, though.
Announcing Readomatic [poetsch.org]
Via digg.
Technorati Tags: rss, software
Pete Mortensen is a design strategist for consulting firm Jump Associates and the co-author of Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy, a book and blog that are significantly more interesting than you might initially think. Pete’s particular Apple avocations are both around design–interface and industrial. Follow him on Twitter!
2 responses to “Readomatic Alpha Release: A Standalone App of Web App of Standalone App”
“We’re through the looking glass here, people.”
Why is that? As nice as AJAX is, standalone apps are still faster & richer. So we have an app here that gives you the advantage of being standalone, while still swimming in the Google sea — you have the better experience when “Readomatic” is available, while retaining web access when it’s not.
There’s nothing “through the looking glass” about that…