eBay Releases Desktop AIR Application As Public Beta
by
on October 03, 2007,
When the first signs of eBay’s standalone AIR-based application, code named San Dimas, hit the Web, we were on it. In mid-April, when the company announced the development’s existence, we passed word on to you.
Well, now you can try San Dimas, now officially given the title ‘eBay Desktop’, for yourself. It’s been months since its first appearance, and it’s finally gone into public beta phase. Mac OS X 10.4 users, as well as those with Microsoft’s XP and Vista operating systems may go to ‘http://desktop.ebay.com’ to download the application. (You’ll need Adobe AIR version 2 to make a successful install of it.)
But wait. Should you hit that download button? Is it worth the effort? Well, no, not really. I’ll tell you why.
Upon the initial load of the application – FYI, you’ll need a user name and password before you enter the marketplace-in-beta – things seem slow. Really slow. I’m unsure whether the issue of lag rests with Adobe’s AIR (also in beta) or eBay’s solution, but it’s there, and it’s frustrating.
First, you need to contend with the delay that exists when performing relatively minor actions, like switching between the ‘Home’, ‘Find’, ‘My Items’, ‘Bid/Buy’, and ‘Feeds’ tags. It’s not terrible, but it’s definitely noticeable. Then there’s the terror of waiting for listings to load.
Whether it be auctions you’re keeping an eye on, or the active marketplace at large, the applet talks to the home servers like its on a work break, sipping tea, having a good day dream, then deciding to complete the request. Yes, I most certainly understand that the average seek time within eBay Desktop is more or less on par with the browser-based original, and that it would certainly be quite difficult for Meg Whitman and gang to speed things up in the beta so as to make the experience more smooth and pleasurable, but that’s very unfortunate, don’t you think? It is, as if by default, bound to offer a terribly slow, and thus terribly painful trip around the marketplace, regardless of the end user’s computational power. Sure, the application is quite nicely done up, assembled into a more attractive layout than boring ol’ eBay.com, but its candy coating doesn’t hide the fact that it operates in such a sluggish manner.
I might as well end this review right here. Speed – or lack of it – is without a doubt eBay Desktop’s most outstanding Achilles heel, and unless the folks working the backend somehow manage to speed things up a good bit, this hindrance could bring about the demise of the application. Which is pretty unfortunate, considering how great a replacement the application could in fact be for members who don’t particularly like the way the website itself is set up. And that’s a group of users I imagine runs into the thousands, perhaps even the million. That makes eBay Desktop quite a big ball to drop, eh?
