Good show, but I wonder how far we can really push the web browser, how will this affect desktop/native apps? We have already canvas and webgl and all but I dont see a web photoshop version competing with the real deal, how come? We're here giving access to "web-scripts" to more and more OS functions and closer to hardware, and yet the most productive apps are native, hm?
I'm not sure that the point is necessarily that the browser should be competing with native pro apps.
Web apps tend to be really good at very specialized functions. A silly, but I think still valid example would be a meme generator using <canvas> and JS. If you want a picture of a cat with some white Arial text and a black drop shadow, a web app is going to be great. It'll probably be faster than Photoshop (especially if you count startup time), and way more accessible.
Same thing goes for the Web Audio API. Will we see a full-fledged Pro Tools competitor? Probably not. But we will see ringtone generators and voice recorders and (hopefully!) some T-Pain AutoTune apps.
Great web apps are all about playing off the web's strengths, not trying to replicate the desktop.
How man years has it taken to get photoshop where it is today? Javascript and internet speeds have only recently gotten fast enough to compete. Give it another 5-10 years and then we'll see real competition for large desktop apps.
