In his blog post titled Mobile 2.0 – Apps vs. Browser Based Web Services, Dennis Bournique of WapReview.com concludes that “within five years standalone mobile applications will largely be replaced by browser based mobile services just as is happening on the desktop today”. I, for the most part, agree with this statement.
Prior to the launch of the iPhone in June of 2007, developers looking to get any sizable distribution were forced into difficult and long business development processes with wireless carriers who generally took very large proportions of revenues generated. A developer with a free ad-supported app that was lucky enough to negotiate a distribution agreement would be left with little revenue. Additionally, none of the handset manufacturers were exposing much of their device’s OS capabilities and handset browsers were far behind where they are today only two years later (the BlackBerry 8700 was one of the hottest devices on the market).
Apple’s iPhone and App Store launch created a perfect storm for independent mobile application developers. Developers were given a rich SDK that would enable them to build apps that were unthinkable a year before, while simultaneously providing a massive distribution opportunity. A two year onslaught of Apple’s marketing and TechCrunch’s iPhone application coverage ensued.
The tech community, especially in Nor-Cal, often get caught up in the latest tech trend and one of the more recent ones was the iPhone and the ‘there’s an app for that’ concept – which of course has been extended to other platforms beyond iPhone OS.
And here we are today. I’ve spoken to various individuals from investors, marketers, to application developers who only seem to see the here and the now – native application development (or more often iPhone application development). As Dennis put it, “there seems to be a tendency today to see apps as the future of mobile and to dismiss all browser based mobile services as second rate.” I personally believe that this is a very short sighted view of the future of mobile. I’d prefer to look to visionaries like Eric Schmidt who in May stated “mobile will be a larger business than the PC-Web. But it will take a few years.”
Those barriers to entry and barriers to development that made native application so essential are being broken down with every new device released. Manufacturers are exposing more and more of their OS, GPS for example, through Javascript APIs available on the mobile web. And now with HTML5, mobile Web apps can take advantage of on device data storage. Mobile Web applications can indeed provide comparable user experiences to their native application counterparts and will only continue to improve.
I foresee a continual ‘blurring’ of the distinctions between mobile web/mobile client applications, as well as the distinctions between desktop/mobile websites. Within a matter of a few years, the mobile web will share the same capabilities as any other platform and will indeed replace native applications as the development platform of choice. Developers who are in early stand to gain the most.