Or, rather, we basically came to the same conclusion as Steve Jobs.

Via Engadget:

Walt: Is the tablet going to replace the laptop? Tell me what you think about where it’s going?

Steve: You know… (long pause). I’m trying to think of a good analogy. When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks. But as people moved more towards urban centers, people started to get into cars. I think PCs are going to be like trucks. Less people will need them. And this is going to make some people uneasy. The PC has taken us a long way. They were amazing. But it changes, vested interests are going to change. And I think we’ve embarked on that change. Is it the iPad? Who knows? Will it be next year or five years…

Walt: Well you don’t think it will be next year?

Steve: Well… who knows?

When I read the article, I tweeted:

Indie Mac devs, I recommend you read this: http://bit.ly/9ZJ8Fq I have this thrilling-slash-terrifying feeling it might be true.

My friend Chad Sellers, the indie developer behind the fabulous application Pear Note, responded:

@Chris_Ashworth While bits of that post may be true, most of it sounds like dumb predictions from 10 years ago (e.g. SaaS kills the desktop)

And this morning Chad followed up with a blog post that expands on this position, arguing that “premium computers are not dying off”, and that Stross’s arguments are tired old lines we’ve heard before, and make as much sense now as they did then, which is to say: not much sense at all.

Chad’s a smart guy, and his argument made me take a second look at Stross’s article, trying to figure out why I had felt such a visceral reaction when I read it the first time.

I think I’ve figured it out.

But first, a summary of the story so far.

I believe Stross’s argument may be fairly boiled down to the following:

1. “PCs are becoming commodity items” with very little profit. Even premium hardware is vulnerable to this trend.
2. Simultaneously, software and data is moving out onto the Internet. The more we see ubiquitous wireless broadband, the less digital stuff will be stored inside the physical computers we personally own.
3. To survive the hardware profitability apocalypse, Apple must transform from a company that primarily makes money on the hardware to a company that primarily makes money on the software.
4. Conclusion: Apple is trying to build the software of the future (the AppStore ecosystem) and buying up cloud computing companies (Lala.com) which will define what software means in the next era of computing and over which they have total control. That way they don’t have to make money on the hardware, ’cause they’ll own the channel for the software.

Chad’s response is, essentially:

1. Don’t be silly. Premium hardware doesn’t die. And everything Apple does is to sell premium hardware.

(Note I say that’s his response, rather than his argument. If you want the argument, read the original.)

My take. FWIW.

You know what? Chad is correct. Stross’s argument doesn’t make a lick of sense. In addition to all the reasons Chad cites, I’ll add one more:

If we’re entering the age of “software as a service”, what the heck is Apple doing building a software channel that is tied to their specific hardware? “Software as a service” does not mean “software compiled for iPhone/iPad/iWhateverTheHellAppleIntroducesNextMonth.” “Software as a service” is hosted on the web. Using the open web standards that Apple supports. In fact, using the web standards that Apple supports so well, that they use them as an argument for why they’re willing to kill Flash. If Apple is trying to own the software sales channel, they’ve left a hole in their plans the size of the Internet. Which I hear is big.

So why did I feel so nervous when I originally read Stross?

Well, mostly I was just being stupid. I didn’t think about his argument carefully.

But another part of it was that I was focusing on small nuggets inside the larger piece. Nuggets that are keeping me up at night. Nuggets like:

• “The PC industry as we have known it for a third of a century is beginning to die.”
• “My take on the iPhone OS, and the iPad, [is] that they’re the start of a whole new range of Apple computers that have a user interface as radically different from their predecessors as the original Macintosh was from previous command-line PCs.”
• “This year, for the first time, the Apple Design Awards at WWDC’10 are only open to iPhone and iPad apps.”
• “I’ve got a theory, and it’s this: Steve Jobs believes he’s gambling Apple’s future — the future of a corporation with a market cap well over US $200Bn — on an all-or-nothing push into a new market.”

Why would I focus on these? They’re mostly just conclusions that, as I mentioned, he fails to back up with good arguments.

But they’re conclusions I have been stumbling toward before reading Stross’s piece. Which painted them in big red blinking letters between the pale gray glow of the arguments around them.

My bad.

FWIW part 2.

So here’s the thing. I actually do think that the cloud computing revolution is happening right now. Yes, people have been predicting it for a long time, but, you know, “the information superhighway” got that silly name way before it actually deserved it. Sometimes the end game takes a lot less time to see than it does to implement.

Back when Jesse Kriss and I were first building QLab, we had the wondrous experience of discovering what a truly beautiful programming ecosystem felt like. We’d need to solve tricky—but boring—problems, and Apple had already solved them. Just a quick search through the documentation and we’d find the Cocoa framework we needed. It felt like magic.

Well, Jesse and I just started building a new product, except this time, yes, the product is on the web. And that magic feeling? It’s happening again. “Gosh, it would be really handy to use HTML 5 web sockets to push update notifications.” “Have you seen PusherApp?” “Gosh, in this spot all we need to do is send a lot of email, and be sure it all just works.” “Golly, those MailChimp guys already do this really, really well.” “What about multi-state load balanced servers that abstract away nearly all the system administration tasks for getting our application up and running and robust?” “Helloooooo, Heroku.”

Jesse likes to say (and I like to agree with him), that we are entering the Golden Age of Internet Development.

And none of this matters.

None of this has anything to do with whether Apple might be planning the demise of Macs as we know them.

After all, Macs are as good a way as any to reach out into that magic cloud of computers in the sky, right?

Actually, that might be the problem.

Computers suck. And it has nothing to do with cloud computing. And Apple knows it.

Here was my response, in three parts to the announcement of the iPad:

Starting to see the critiques roll by: lack of feature X, high price tag Y. First off: folks, remember the iPod & iPhone? Yeah, same deal.

Second: Interaction design. Third: Interaction design. Fourth: Interaction design.

You cannot separate an application from the way you interact with it. It’s just that this part was never a differentiator before. Now it is.

There is a revolution happening here that is relevant to the argument at hand, but it’s not cloud computing or “software as a service”. Those things are good. Those things will happen. Those things don’t matter.

What matters is that computers suck. They just suck. They’ve sucked for a long, long time, and they’re not really getting any better. It’s hard for us to remember how bad they suck, because almost all of us have gotten used to it.

It’s hard to remember how complicated and non-obvious a computer really is. It’s hard to remember how many layers upon layers of mental models and abstractions we have built up in order to let us manipulate the electrons inside this box. And I mean all of us. Not just your grandpa who has no mental model, but has memorized the precise series of button presses that allow him to write and send an email. Not just the mildly geeky computer user who is generally savvy but doesn’t really understand directory structures very well. I’m talking about those of us who program the damn things. Yes, I know some basics of what is happening to the electrons down inside that chip, but to really follow the story of one electron up and down every layer of abstraction until it comes out my printer as my airplane boarding pass? That shit is real, bro.

I am telling you I have watched my mother-in-law, who has chosen not to use computers, try to use a mouse. And I am telling you that she watched her hand move the mouse, and then she looked up to try to find where the arrow had gone. And I am telling you that this makes a lot of sense if you think about it.

I am telling you that COMPUTERS SUCK.

And not only does Apple know it, but

Apple is doing something about it.

This, friends, is what thrills and terrifies me.

If you’ve used an iPad, you know that this is a different way of connecting your brain to a computer. It’s a better way. And if you haven’t used an iPad, you just have to watch a 2-year-old doing it, and you can take the hint.

“Better way? Don’t be an idiot! Have you tried typing on those things?!”

Stay with me buddy, staaaaay with me.

Yes, I know. The iPad is not the pinnacle of human/computer interaction. Typing on them without a physical keyboard stinks. And, well, it turns out it’s actually pretty handy to be able to type words into your computer easily.

I’m not saying the iPad is perfect. I’m not saying that everything the tech industry made up until now was garbage. Yes, computers basically suck, but there’s a reason we use them. Once you get over the suck hump they’re actually pretty handy. And some of the ways we interact with them today are not completely terrible.

But a new day is dawning. And Apple is basically doing it single-handedly. They are redefining what it means for a human to manipulate the electrons in the box, and they are making it better. Significantly better. Paradigm-shiftingly better.

And here, speaking as an independent developer who runs a small software company based on Mac OS X, is where things get… interesting.

When the paradigm shifts, something will be left behind.

In his rebuttal, Chad rightly points to Apple’s most recent earnings report.

Check out that last graph. Down there at the bottom. The one of total revenue. iPhone and iPod? Whupping. Mac’s. Ass.

Simple computers with the world’s best interaction design have, almost overnight, become Apple’s single biggest moneymaker.

[Interjection: DEAR PRODUCT TEAMS THAT STILL THINK INTERACTION DESIGN IS NOT THE MOST IMPORTANT FEATURE ON YOUR FEATURE LIST—HOW ARE YOU MISSING THIS?]

Apple is not just creating a new kind of computer. Apple is not just creating a new market. Apple is creating a new era of computing — the era of friendly machines. And for those of us who work in this field, this is awesome — in the original sense of that word, where admiration and apprehension mix in equal measure.

But you’ll always need a Mac to run Photoshop

Photoshop? You think Photoshop, or a whole line-up of high-powered desktop apps, can stop this?

Maybe. It’s possible. But as far as I can tell, your Photoshop may not save you.

Look at that graph again. Think about the complexity of the desktop environment. Think about how much it costs to earn that Mac-based revenue. Look at that iPhone and iPod revenue. Think about the comparative simplicity of that ecosystem. Think about how much more money they’re going to make on those devices in the future. It’s not like the iPhone/iPad revenue is flatlining.

Apple is not shy about killing off a successful product to replace it with a new, more successful product. (Hello, iPod Nano.)

Would Apple kill the Mac and OS X ecosystem to focus on the 80 percent of computing activity that works great on the new devices?

No? How much would you be willing to bet? Would you bet the company?

I’ll say this. I definitely don’t know the answer. But I also definitely will not bet the company that the answer is “no”.

Edited May 9 to add: On reflection, and on the observations made in the comments, I’m inclined to refine my outlook on this to the following: Apple may be able to throw out a bunch of desktop software that requires the old style of computer, but the one thing they can’t afford to throw out are the developers, who (currently) still need Macs to write software. So if Photoshop doesn’t save you, XCode may.

Tommy Howells once said:

Truth wanting to lead a quiet life often settles between the extremes.

And that’s probably not a bad bet on this one either. In the mental roadmap I’m trying to form for my company, I’m settling most comfortably near the prediction that Macs will become more of a niche, rather than disappear completely.

But it sure is interesting to imagine what a Mac-less future might look like. And if Apple eventually moves the development environment for iPads on to the iPad? Watch out.

Or: “So THAT just happened.”

Or: “In a few hours the circle closes and I am going to yell about it from my little rooftop because although it ain’t really all that huge — wow it sure feels huge to me.”

Warning: personal story ahead. And yeah, it’s kind of long. Skip it if you want. I don’t care. I’ll yell this to empty streets and feel damn fine about it.

Everyone gone? Cool. Alright empty streets! Just you and me now!

[Deep breath in.] Aaaaaannnd…..

August, 2004 — Swallowing the seed

In August 2004, I join my Actor’s Theatre Apprentice buddies John Catron, Jenna Close, and Bradley Wayne Smith as they take their newly-formed theatre company to the Edinburough Fringe.

We pass customs!

We roam the streets!

We hawk our wares! (Seen here: John Catron as the Smallest Full Grown Man Alive!)

We even put on a show!

I serve as light op, sound op, stage manager, and house manager. From inside a coat closet. A very, very small coat closet.

Audio runs from iTunes, on that laptop balanced precariously on a stool there in the middle. To the left: light board and audio mixer! To the right: script and wall switches! Not pictured: the furious concentration needed to run this (uncomplicated) show!

October 14 2004 — “I’m wondering…”

Later that year, John writes me an email. Says they’re doing a new show in January. Says a CD player won’t cut it. Asks if I know of a Mac-based application for running sound effects. I think to myself, “sure, I’ll Google one for you”.

Huh. Doesn’t seem to be a lot out there for Mac. Wasn’t expecting that.

I write an email to my buddies Jesse Kriss and Jen Wang:

Editor’s note: you should check out Cricket. It’s cool, and it does stuff QLab doesn’t.

Jesse writes back:

And, in perhaps the most loaded one-line email afterthought I’ve ever received:

And so it begins.

And when I say “it begins”, I mean “it begins from scratch”. To wit:

• We’d never used CoreAudio before.
• We’d never used XCode before.
• We’d never used Objective-C before.
• We’d never written a Mac application before.
• We’d never written a full application of any kind before.

Remember above how I said they needed something in January? And how it is currently late October?

October 17, 2004 — Who cares?! We’re young, we’re ignorant, and sketching interfaces is fun!

Jesse lobs the first sketch at me (click for larger version):

October 18, 2004 — Hello rabbit hole! Mind if we poke our nose in?

In an email entitled “i heart obj-c”, Jesse writes:

So I’m doing my reading and playing around a bit. Obj-C is pretty damned cool. And the Apple frameworks are pretty nice, too.

October 19, 2004 — Hey this thing makes noise!

I write:

I actually managed to get a little bit of other work done today (although I haven’t even STARTED the ten page paper technically due tomorrow! Wheee!!), but I couldn’t resist putting in a little time on this as well. I am now able to read, write, and play the following file types:

AIFC
AIFF
MPEG Layer 3
NeXT/Sun
Sound Designer II
WAVE
AC3
AAC ADTS

I’ve also been thinking about design choices and I hope to send along some sketches of possible design patterns and object models we could use in the next couple of days.

This is all just to say…ummm…”Cool. We’re making progress.”

Cheers,
Christopher

November 24, 2004

First test version sent to John! Sweet!

John tries it. And…it doesn’t work! Suck!

A few hours later, we figure out the problem. (Hi ZeroLink! A note from future me: you suck, and Apple later kills you because you suck. Just FYI.)

And finally: Off and running!

November-December, 2004

Bug report, fix, add, bug report, fix, add, scramble.

3AM iChat sessions with Jesse.

Homework be damned.

January 14, 2005

First show. IT LIVES! And it looks like this!

Winter, 2005

Exhaustion.

Oh, yeah, and school. Probably should work on that.

Spring, 2005

Man, school sucks.

I want something fun to work on. Hey, that sound cue project was pretty fun. Maybe I’ll dust that code off and take another look.

Summer, 2005

Write write write rip out write write delete write rewrite write rewrite sleep write sketch write.

June 14th, 2005

Hey Jesse! Look at this cool widget I just made!

December 29, 2005

First public beta release. Hey, theatre-sound@listserv.aol.com! Um, anyone here want to take a look at this thing I’ve been fiddling with?

Hi all,

My name’s Chris; I’m a new member of the list.

I’ve been working on a new sound design/playback application for Mac OS X, and I am looking for folks who can help me improve it.

[...snip...]

Theatre making is damn well hard enough, in my opinion, so I set out to build a new tool: QLab. After over a year of work, the first beta versions are ready for public testing. Here’s the address:

http://figure53.com

QLab is free, and will remain so. [Editor's note: yup, we've still got a really nice free version.] My background in theatre makes me hungry to improve it, and my background in computers gives me the tools to do so, but I look to you–those with a strong background in sound design–to help me know how it should evolve to serve you best.

Remember, this is beta software; I need your help to push it and poke it and learn how to make it better.

I hope to hear back from any of you who can spare a moment to give me some feedback.

best to all,
and (early) happy new year,
Christopher

Winter 2006

Wow! People are trying it out! And emailing me! This is so much fun!

Later Winter 2006

Wow! People are using it! People are using it!

Spring 2006

Wow…people are…really using it?

Ohshitohshitohshitohshit.

May 10 2006

Okay, okay, calm down. There are just a few people playing around with it for some high school plays and some community theater productions. It’s cool, it’s cool.

Huh, what’s this email in my inbox?

My name is [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] referred me to your software recently. After lengthy discussions and a good bit of testing I decided I could try using QLab instead of our tried and true Instant Replay Systems. While it might have been better to try it out on a smaller, less significant show; timing worked out that my rig was ready for operation just in time for a huge show, produced by one of our most important clients.

Although I was somewhat nervous to try the new technology on such a high profile event, the potential upside overshadowed my concerns. My ambition was quickly rewarded.

[...] QLab has changed everything. [...]

Thank you for such a valuable product. I would be glad to help in anyway you need to further develop this tool. Feel free to quote me on any of this and if you need any specific quotes or anything I’d be happy to help. I have also included a couple of pictures from the [REDACTED] Show.

Also, can I get a copy of the pro version?

Ohshitohshitohshitohshit.

September 16 2006

Okay, fine. Let’s do this thing.

Version 1.0.0. Base version still free. Pro features available for a small fee. Let’s see what happens.

And man, this is fun.

And it now looks, more or less, like this:

(Click for larger version)

And then, the blur

Things start to pick up steam. More and more folks start using it. More and more folks tell their friends.

February 11 2008

Last release of version 1. I duck into my mental bunker, and begin work on version 2.

April 7 2008

I officially quit my day job. I start working for Figure 53 full time.

More blur

High schools. Community theaters. Regional theaters. Then Broadway. Then the West End. Shows winning Tony awards.

January 30, 2009

Version 2.

My wife will tell you: I was literally shaking when I pressed the “Send” button on that email. Shay. King.

And as a present to myself, I bought a Wii. Thought I’d finally take a day off, play some video games for the first time in, well, years.

Silly Christopher. You really thought you could tear yourself away from your computer on release day? Really? Silly, silly man.

Ze goggles, zey do nothing!

More colleges. More national theaters of foreign countries. More shows winning Tony awards. Then shows that are too big for me to be allowed to mention them. (Hint: do you watch TV? You’ve probably recently heard QLab.) (Edited later to add: The cat’s out of the bag.)

And using the momentum produced by version 2, Figure 53 launches into a new era: I get to invite my dear friend and code ninja Sean Dougall on board.

Closely followed by, yes, you guessed it, the guy who was there at the beginning: Jesse Kriss.

IS THERE A POINT OR ARE YOU JUST GOING TO BRAG AT ME?!?!?

Wow, empty streets, didn’t know you could vocalize.

ANSWER THE QUESTION, IGNOMINIOUS ROOFTOP YELLER!

Okay, fine, here’s the point.

Yes, I’m proud of this stuff, and yes the experience has repeatedly sent shocks of adrenaline through my system, and, god, it’s incredible to serve professionals of such deep intelligence and skill.

But right now all that stuff is just the context for my point. Which is a very personal one, and which is this:

A lot of milestones have come and gone. Except one. I’ve never been part of a show that actually used the damn thing.

Until tonight. Which, dear empty streets, is why I’m up here embarrassing myself with all this carrying on. Taking out the baby pictures. Talking at you until your eyes glaze over. Because tonight at Single Carrot Theatre the circle closes, and I’ll participate in a show run on QLab, and this has been five years in the making, and frankly I’m feeling a little emotional about it.

…

So, um…thanks.

….that’s pretty much it.

Thanks for indulging me, empty streets.

…which way down from this roof again?

Oh, and, Baltimore: maybe come see the show? It’d sure be an honor to have you there. Click below for tickets:

You agree that all goodwill arising out of your authorized use of Apple’s marks shall inure to the benefit of and belong to Apple.

Um…what? Do they have a magic bottle of goodwill they’re storing up just in case the fanboys get a sip of someone else’s Kool-Aid? And if so, can I purchase one of these emotion-capturing bottles? Imagine the business opportunities here…you’re sitting on a gold mine Apple!

Last night, my friend Chad from Tresys released his new application Pear Note:

http://www.usefulfruit.com/pearnote/

If you take notes during meetings or classes, this app is for you. It’s a simple note taking app with a brilliant twist: it records the time you make every single keystroke, and it records the audio in the room as you take your notes. The result is not just notes. It’s notes with full context.

Did you write something down that doesn’t seem to make sense? Click on the word you typed and it will jump to that exact moment in the audio recording. Scrub around in the audio recording and it will highlight what words you were typing at that moment. Hell, you can even play back the whole class or meeting from beginning to end. Listen to every word and watch Pear Note highlight what you wrote at the exact moment you wrote it.

It’s not just audio, either. It also records video and even slides (PowerPoint, Keynote, or PDF). Point your camera at the action, drag the slides onto your notes, and start typing away. It will record which slide was up at every moment. Play it back to hear the audio, see the video, and watch the slides, all integrated as one complete note document.

I’ve been testing this app for a while now, and frankly I think it’s going to be a hit. It’s flat-out fantastic to have the full context of a meeting recorded with your notes. I took it to a meeting with my tax accountant, and a week later when I couldn’t figure out how the hell I was supposed to fill out a particular form I just opened up my notes, clicked on the part where I had tried (and failed) to write down his instructions, and listened to him describe it all again in full original detail. Brilliant.

Check it out and let Chad know what you think!

I’d like to introduce you to Figure 53′s first full-time employee:

Me.

Starting today, starting right now, I finally have the distinct delight and tremendous advantage of focusing entirely on working for my own company. Full time.

I can barely express how excited I am about this. But in all my excitement, I couldn’t spill the beans before today. Which meant I had to bite my blogging tongue when the following bit of awesomeness occurred:

Last Wednesday an unmarked package arrived in the mail. Inside was found the T-shirt you see below. No name. Black on black.

(You can see our model is gazing fiercely at the future, ready to strike stunning deals on international conference calls, followed by rewarding himself with extra vacation and a mid-afternoon nap.)

I eventually smoked out the responsible party: Jesse Kriss. Thanks buddy. It made my day.

The new iPhone SDK, which gives developers access to the accelerometer, should make it easy to write up a little iPhone pedometer application.

Just tell the app your stride length, turn it on, slide the iPhone in your pocket, and away you go. A friendly display can show your number of steps, approximate distance traveled, a reset button, a history log, and a picture of a puppy. Because who doesn’t love adorable puppies?

Edited to add: Nevermind. Rogue Amoeba reports:

… the SDK agreement expressly forbids using non-public APIs, attempting to touch other applications, and running in the background, among other things.

No running in the background makes a pedometer useless.

Lawyers and software. What a great combination.

Fine. Cool.

For what it’s worth, I strongly prefer the Mac style of rendering. That means just about zilch, though, since I’ve never used Windows long enough to get accustomed to their style of aliasing.

Even so I take issue with Joel’s claim that anyone who prefers the Mac style does so because they are “untrained”. Though Joel claims it, I don’t see why it’s obvious that the Windows style is actually “pragmatically” better. He says it is easier to read, but offers no evidence. At the moment I must assume he’s coming to that conclusion through introspection.

I’m suspicious, because to me his claim sounds like an engineer’s argument: “It fits in the grid and is therefore sharper–obviously that makes it easier to read!” Really? For sure? Why? Our eyes do funny things, on a physical level. In particular they have a lot of hardwiring for certain kinds of image processing. They find edges really well. They take differentials across space (and time) really well. They don’t sit there passively, they actively modify the signal in a manner that turns out to be useful for our brain.

So it’s unclear to me if forcing fonts to render on the pixel grid is actually better. The only thing that appears clear to me is that it would be increasing the high frequency signal in the text’s rendered image. Is that helpful? I’d guess probably not. If nothing else, the more high frequency information there is, the higher the contrast required to see it:

For ease of reading, it is essential that text have a reasonable luminance difference from its background. The International Standards Organization (ISO 9241, part 3) recommends a minimum 3:1 luminance ratio of text and background; 10:1 is preferred. This recommendation can be generalized to the display of any kind of information where fine-detail resolution is desirable. In fact, as the spatial modulation sensitivity function shows, the finer the detail, the greater the contrast required.

(From Information Visualization: Perception for Design, 2nd edition, by Colin Ware.)

I’m not saying I know whether Microsoft’s approach is better or not. It may be neither is better, or they’re better for different people, depending on your goals and your biology. But whatever the claim, I’d like to see some evidence for it.

With LINA, a single executable written and compiled for Linux can be run with native look and feel on Windows, Mac OS X, and UNIX operating systems.

Native look and feel, eh? Not likely. There’s a clue right up front that should make you skeptical: These solutions are made by programmers, for programmers. If this were a coding tool, that’d be great. But it’s a user interface tool.

Red. Freaking. Flag.

But that hint alone is not enough. Some programmers can actually design interfaces too. So what’s my real reason to be a doubta?

Basically, because they’re trying to do something impossible. Which usually results in failure.

If you care about your users and their experience using your software, you should be avoiding these kinds of tools at all costs. This is a lesson we should have learned by now: “A Native Widget Does Not a Native GUI Make”. That’s why X11 apps in Mac OS X are used by approximately nobody. That’s why RealBasic and Java applications usually stick out like a sore thumb. The widgets may be native, but the look and feel? No way.

And don’t forget: not all interface elements are visual. Take key shortcut conventions, for example. Microsoft flouts all of them in its OS X apps. Which is a pity, because they did so much well with their office apps, and then they go and use Windows key shortcuts. Every time you try to change the text style in Word, or adjust the zoom on the document, it’s a little wack on your brain: “You’re! Using! A! Windows! App!”

Ouch! My brain!

So stop looking for the holy grail of cross platform development. It doesn’t exist. Have a little respect for your interface, and by implication, your users. It’s more work, but they’ll notice. And they’ll love you for it.