Not So Fast: Native Apps Still Trump Mobile Web
Last week over on webapptesting.com, Jamie Saine blogged about why the mobile web could conquer native apps. In her post, she cited predictions from noted mobile experts who believe that HTML 5 browsers will win out in the long run. This is not an uncommon view in the mobile world, but is it realistic?
As a brief rebuttal, I wanted to entertain the exact opposite: Could native apps actually conquer the mobile web? In many ways, they already have. Here’s why:
For one, the mobile web has already lost considerable ground on native apps, a trend that’s expected to continue - and possibly accelerate – over the next few years. As covered by Amy Gahran of CNN:
“A year and a half ago, mobile users tended to spend considerably more time — an average of 64 minutes per day — using the Web browser on their phone or tablet. By comparison, they spent only 43 minutes per day in apps. Now mobile users now spend an average of 94 minutes per day using apps, but just 72 minutes browsing the mobile Web…”
In fact, Joe Wilcox of Beta News had even higher statistics of mobile app usage:
“In March, the web browser accounted for just 18.5 percent of time spent online among US smart-phone users. Mobile apps accounted for the rest. Now we know why Safari for iOS capabilities advance so sparingly: Apple sees it as irrelevant. Stated differently: Safari is to mobile what Internet Explorer 6 was to the desktop 10 years ago. Apps matter more to both developers.”
Bottom line: We are spending more time with native apps. Why? Speed. Convenience. Reliability. Accuracy. Usability. These are things not currently associated with the mobile browser. As Jamie noted in her post:
The mobile browser is just not ready for a true Post-App Economy. When we talk about mobile Web apps, HTML5, CSS and the like, we are talking about the quality and capabilities of the mobile browser. Currently, none of the major mobile browser providers have the capability to serve top-notch, app-like experiences that serve all user expectations. … Direct access to the full capabilities of mobile devices is the primary issue, but not the only one. Others include rendering, graphics and load time (all basically in the same category), along with HTML5 audio and video quality. …
Users from across the spectrum have made it loud and clear: They prefer to access content via native apps. If the usage of mobile apps continues to grow at this rate, could the mobile web dissolve entirely? No way. Can it be rendered insignificant? Possibly.
What do you think? Let us know what you think in the comments section.
Hi Katherine, this is a great post! I completely agree that native apps are generally the best option. While apps with internet access are great sometimes (mobile banking or GPS for example), native apps really do offer a user experience that is so much better.
The “weather” of any such prognostication might best be informed by the temperature and winds of the ever variant ecology better known together as technology, economy, politicology, probability and community (users , providers and stakeholders) – no matter how distant, remote from the predictor. Does the current article map all these – historically, currently and potentially? Are you willing to accept less or demand more? Is a sufficient weather gradient (sunny, partly sunny, cloudy, partly, cloudy, light rain, heavy …) enough granularity on a measurable scale (quantitative degrees as opposed to qualitative descriptions) availed or only absolutes (rain)? Is plausibility for the unexpected accounted – that is, is the factual scope limited (only a local experience as opposed to a global history)? To mix analogies, is the article playing with enough cards out of the deck of weather? Do they know the game? Given a hand of 2 cards (native and web) and no chance to pick another from the deck or blending their value as a hand (a suit or accumulation), accessing the value of the cards individually and throwing out one to make a bet might not be the game the way it will be played by rules not yet known. The weather was once forecast for the Navigator or the Explorer. And, then, what came on the horizon – already known on certain islands, to some remote? Did someone yell Yahoo at AltaVista and then got Google in a storm? Oh, how “micro” climates can grow “soft”. Beware of trendy information. Fortune tellers are limited by their person and the deck.
That said, one can admire much in the opposing articles: A) the pro-web article vs B) the pro-native article.
Are the largest number of mobile devices the upper end or the lower end? (Lower end.) Are such devices accessing iPhone content (apps, etc.) or web content? (non-iPhone) Are most mobile device users (particularly cellphone users in the USA) also home broadband users? (No.) Are most cellphone users in: USSR? (No.) USA? (No.) Europe? (No.) India? (No.) China? (Yes!). However, oddly (perhaps), there are more cellphones in use in the USA than there are people in the USA census (3% more phones than people, that is, 103%)! For Arabian countries (say, the UAE it’s 197%), cellphones out number the population by even more (almost double) compared to cellphones out numbering the population in the USA.
Does either article (A or B) grasp the weather globally? From the few snapshots I see, I see mostly localized snapshots, each a narrow region of fish-eyed space-time. However, I am no expert on the weather, vision (visionaries) or cards per se. Yet, I know there are millions of minds at work in the technical space though we wake up to a world – almost always – apparently 99% * x (where x is say plus or minus y insanity) as it was yesterday. Amazing how many (deprecated or not) technologies still remain on the earth! Despite VoIP you see tweeter, tweeter, tweeter still abuzz in the weather of the breeze.
The evolutionary course, random as it is, finds echo in the A author’s phrase “they just head toward the best content and utilities” – where I would add “connections (whether social or otherwise) and resource I/O”. Twitter capitalized on social weather in politicology and more broadly sociology. A consideration for resource I/O for instance is battery drain per united of perceived added value (the cost to process a local data store as opposed to search facilitates on a cloud) and trade-offs such as speed over time or thoroughness. An advance in battery life tips the equation one way and an increase in outer data store capabilities or size tips the equation in another way where each tip is offset by the users’ perceived need/experience. The “now” of these things would seem no more a good predictor of the “later” than current stock prices of some supposed ventures xyz and zyz in technology a guarantee of future behavior.
So, who is right? Ladies and gentlemen, place your bets … with further insights!