About a year ago I wrote over on my Twitter in London blog why apps will die.
iPhone, Android & other non web-apps are a giant step backward to the 90’s - where platform dependent software had to be installed, and the web was just a pet project of Tim Berners Lee at CERN
We intend to keep JustWhatsOn.com as a mobile web app - any ‘apps’ will just be a browser window onto our site.
Here’s why - an updated, refocussed post
Multiple Platforms
iPhone, Android, Windows Phone 7, Blackberry, Symbian, Mac, PC.
To cover most devices you will have to develop 7 different apps, in different languages. Requiring up to 7 different developers, 7 separate testing cycles. Then when you update - 7 new uploads. Then multiple versions to manage on each device. FUN.
OR you can develop ONE web app - which may or may not need tweaked styling to look its best on other platforms.
Developing ONE app allows you to focus on innovation and not technical differences.
Updates
Those 7 apps - will need 7 uploads to update - every time you want to change *anything* - fix a bug, rollout a new feature - or tweak the colour of the buttons.
Not to mention the iOS App store submission process - which is slow and can reject apps.
Updates also rely on users to run the update - resulting in multiple versions of your app out there to support.
Web - rollout updates 24/7 to all platforms. Don’t require download or install.
OS Versions
Written your app for iOS 3? Well now you’ve got to update it to iOS 4. Android 1.5? Now it wont run on 1.6. NIGHTMARE.
Web - write once, run anywhere. You control version updates.
Skills
Web development is probably the most common type of development these days. iOS development? Windows Phone 7? Blackberry? These are harder to find niches in high demand.
Piracy
Jail Break your iOS device and you can have a pirated copy of any app down within seconds. Piracy of a web app is practically impossible.
Malware / Viruses
Installing any software on your device carries a risk of malware getting onto your device. Using pirated software increases this risk.
Phones are becoming increasingly important to every aspect of our lives & remote payment solutions will be here soon. Do we want to risk having a virus on such an important device? I don’t!
Use Existing Infrastructure
Any company with an existing website can very simply, cheaply & quickly rollout a mobile skin for it.
To create even one app is a whole new software project. To create a flashy iPad ‘magazine’ app is so backward to be laughable - reminiscent of CD-ROM’s in the 90’s
Murdoch’s Law: Any bet in Digital made by Rupert Murdoch will be catastrophically wrong. Therefore, to find success, do the opposite.
Rupert Murdoch is betting on subscription & binary iPad ‘publications’ - clear signs both will fail.
Advantages of Apps
There aren’t many - and with HTML 5 Canvas for games & motion graphics - and its offline storage - what few advantages there are are going away.
Hardware integration of GPS & gyroscope etc through the web is already here & will increase going forward.
Web App Store
The iPhone & Android app stores are clearly very successful. But this is not because people love to use bespoke binary apps - it’s because they love the ease of downloading & discovering apps & developers love the simple discovery & payment model.
So the ‘app store’ is not going away - but it will morph into a standards based, cross platform ‘web app store’. Users will see no difference - but the massive advantages listed in this article will result in faster innovation in apps - and availability across all platforms.
The Chrome Web Store points the direction here. It’s an ‘app store’ based on HTML 5; it’s clearly on trend.
Conclusion
Let’s not get the popularity of the discovery & purchase process of app stores confused with the out-dated underlying technology & distribution model of multiple installed binary apps.
A standards based future awaits - and its better for us all.
