One of the great features of a web-based bug tracker is that I can paste ticket links in various places, which people can view with a single click.
On top of that, it's yet another app to be installed and kept up to date, which everyone on your team has to independently do. If it auto-updates, presumably one person updating will update the database and then require everyone else to upgrade to continue use? I can't tell you how annoyed I'd be if it did that right after I finished entering info for a new ticket..
I appreciate the feature set and motivations from that perspective, but I have trouble with the native app part. I'm a very heavy app user though; Aside from my actual IDE, git, and the executable code I am actually writing (generally web apps or background daemons), everything I do is web-based: Email, chat, docs, bug tracker, wiki, build server, repository management, notes, news, music...
It's possible you've not experienced the problems that we have with web based issue trackers. That's ok. Ship may not be the right tool for you.
As for all-at-once upgrades, so far it's not been an issue. The client ignores things it doesn't understand and we've kept the server backwards compatible for the last 7 months. We expect to be able to continue to do so.
I actually love the native part, fwiw. I've often thought that a native JIRA client could be way easier to use than their web interface. Of course they could also just invest in making their web interface much better, but native expectations are naturally very high, and a lot of the horrible UX practices we accept on the web wouldn't fly in a native environment. Essentially it would have no choice but to be better.
> a lot of the horrible UX practices we accept on the web wouldn't fly in a native environment.
I'm interested by this statement. I like to think I just web and native apps by the same standards. I've seen horrible UX in both - and great UX in both. I currently lean towards favouring web apps based purely on my feeling that I tend to get a better UI on average.
Together we obviously represent a pretty small sample, but I'm curious what OS you use? One of the reasons I like MacOS is because the apps are typically better designed than what I got when I used Windows or Linux as my desktop (don't get me started on Linux UIs).
Don't get me wrong, I've seen some bad app UIs on the Mac -- even from Apple. The old skeuomorphic days are coming back to me as I type this and I'm still sad for them. :)
There is no fundamental reason why native apps can not expose shareable links just like any other. And on the other hand with the prevalence of single page webapps etc its far from guaranteed that you can get usable links from webapps.
A web link is easily shareable on the assumption that anyone you send it to has a web browser. A link to a native app requires you to assume that the recipient has the app installed and is on a platform where app URL schemes are well-supported.
Direct linking inside apps has been enough of a pain in the mobile world that entire companies have been built around it -- and the solution that those companies tend to use is built on web links. Android and iOS have also been moving in that direction.
None of them are great. Android and very recent iOS are doing OK. Desktop OSes are still pretty bad. Clicking a non-HTTP protocol link in Chrome pops up a huge, user-unfriendly "External Protocol Request" dialog that warns of a possible attack on my system. That's pretty par for the course for desktop browsers.
On top of that, it's yet another app to be installed and kept up to date, which everyone on your team has to independently do. If it auto-updates, presumably one person updating will update the database and then require everyone else to upgrade to continue use? I can't tell you how annoyed I'd be if it did that right after I finished entering info for a new ticket..
I appreciate the feature set and motivations from that perspective, but I have trouble with the native app part. I'm a very heavy app user though; Aside from my actual IDE, git, and the executable code I am actually writing (generally web apps or background daemons), everything I do is web-based: Email, chat, docs, bug tracker, wiki, build server, repository management, notes, news, music...