> LLMs, by definition, can’t make anything thoughtfully, because LLMs have no thoughts. ... apps that feel crafted, that show refinement, that feel intuitive—requires a human developer not only with taste, but with understanding.

Well said, thank you.

It saddens me that people can't understand this. Already there is the fallacy of "I can make apps with AI, therefore no one needs to code anymore," as if all coding was was making apps. But even the apps that people think are passable feel so fake, clunky and sludgy.

That was there before LLMs. I know too many people who just shoved together some UI frameworks and called it a day. The same happens now with the only difference that LLMs are doing the shoving and therefore these things pop up at a higher rate. And to be honest the shoving that LLMs do, produce, most of the time, a better outcome than the shoving of people who don't care.

Yes there is the 1% of companies / people who really care about the things that you quote and these will be there in the future and, with the help of AI / LLMs refine / accelerate their workflow.

LLMs will give responses based on data that already exists. There's plenty of data that allows an LLM to write working code - possibly even high-quality code! But there's not much data that says how to make a "great" app, I think because it's domain specific.

Consider:

What made Firefox great was the lived experience of people fed up with IE6. The Internet talked plenty about speed, tabs, and stability, but "speed, tabs, and stability" undersells much of what made Firefox stand out.

What made Ocarina of Time great was that it defined a genre. No one really knew yet whether the story, the graphics, the dungeon design, or the marketing was going to sell that game. You couldn't yet ask any other Miyamotos what had worked for a 3D adventure.

We still arguing over what made Tom Brady (the American football player) great, not being able to nail down if it was the length of his career, the number of times he won the Super Bowl, his individual game records, his coach, the rest of his team, or something else entirely.

I think, likewise, the criteria for a "great" app aren't known until the app is already great, and that gives an LLM no specific advantage.

The "problem" (if it is one) is the same as we had with previous craftsmen being replaced by mass-production. Since it doesn't "have" to be done by hand, it can be done quickly and cookie-cutter.

And the dirty secret is that 90% of "stuff" is crud already (literally CRUD or just a tool for a task, no thought needed).

Everyone loves those little apps that used to be so common on the Mac, lovingly created and amazingly excellent at some small task; but the vast majority of people use whatever tool barely works and move on with their life. AI is incredibly enabling there; even if all you ever use it for is automating away spreadsheets.

I think one counterpoint is that sometimes something tailored to you might outweigh something that is thoughtfully designed, but designed for everyone.

I do think people quickly vibe coding apps that they expect to get any real amount of market penetration is a flash in the pan that will fizzle out pretty quickly - after all, if it took you a few prompts to write it would take me the same to do that, so why exactly am I paying for your version?

But I've built a lot of apps with LLMs that I intend to use just for me - I don't think I'd fool anyone into thinking they're not coded almost entirely with an agent, but I don't really care - they match all of the quirks and ideosyncracies that I personally have for apps, so it feels much better than something that's one-size fits all, even if that one-size fits all thing had a lot of effort put into it.

I have a bunch of little utilities like that that work the way I want to work - a pomodoro timer, a task management app, a password manager - I'm sure 1password, or Todoist, or some time management app with a bunch of bells and whistles is better for the average user, but the stuff I vibe code is better for me, since I can tailor it to exactly what I want.

Right now, it's mostly tech people who are doing stuff like this, but I don't actually think these hyper personal apps require all that much technical skill to make, especially when they just run locally, so I could imagine a world where all sorts of people make things for themselves using prompts.

Funny thing is that people still use AI to write GUI apps, while in the future the entire app can often be replaced by a voice interface.

LLMs today create apps which are more crafted and have more refinement than 80% of the human made apps.

This argument is "a Ferrari is a better car than a Ford". What point is this exactly making? Who can afford having Jonathan Ive designing their app?