Help, my browser ate my desktop

by Steve Mathew

If you could see my desktop, you’d be better off than me. My laptop desktop, I mean. I have really cool wallpapers, a zillion icons and shortcuts, it’s busy. Problem is - I can’t see it.

You see, the last year or two has seen most of my work move “inside” the browser.  With the exception of occasional use of office apps, my wire-framing tools and some specialist software or design tools - I spend my day inside the browser.

All my content is on the web or in the cloud - my mail, calendars, my tools, my blog, RSS feeds, my projects, notes - the list goes on. I have at least 20 tabs open in the browser as I switch between tasks and content I am working with. The end result is that from dawn to dusk (and later!) my browser is open - full screen - and blocking my desktop.

But this is more than just an emphasis from working “on my computer” to “through my computer” - from local content and processing to cloud computing.  In fact right now the traditional operating system is becoming less vital to me. It’s there, supporting the browser, but it’s my browser that I really rely on to Get Things Done.

Slowly but surely browser dominance has swallowed up my desktop - apps and content. If you think about a desktop as a page of links to content stored on your hard-drive or network drives, then a “webtop” would become a page of links to your content and apps stored in the cloud, with the advantage of not being tied to your computer. This is pretty much what I experience already.

So where does this leave the traditional desktop and underlying operating system? I predict that in 5 to 7 years the desktop (as we know it) will be history. Installing apps locally and saving the data local will still be the quaint way your mom works, but fast becoming old school.

The desktop is dead.  Get over it.