It’s a thrilling time in digital history. We not only use the web on our computers, but on our telephones, tablets and even our TVs. The Internet is no longer something you check at home or at the office, but something you use no matter where you are.
This presents some challenges, however. Viewing a site on a device the size of your palm is a much different experience than viewing it on your monitor at home.
Let’s say you want to create a mobile website for your e-commerce store. Where to start? Develop an iPhone app? After all, there are a million iPhones out there, right? But what about Android or webOS phone users? Or people with BlackBerrys? Each of these devices uses a different developer platform, which means developing a separate app for each device. It can get very expensive very fast.
Adding to the confusion is the lack of support for certain technologies. Take Adobe Flash for example. You can open this Flash site on a webOS phone and see the content:
A Flash website in webOS (Palm Pre)
But on your iPad you would see this:
A Flash website on the iPad
On some BlackBerrys you wouldn’t see anything at all. It’s problematic. It’s also the reason why we’ll almost always steer away from device specific apps.
This is clearly a problem. But before we talk about how to approach this, lets step back and take a look at some of the important definitions, as it gets a little bit murky the more you dive in.
Differences Between Apps And The Mobile Web
An “app” (short for application) is basically just dedicated software built for a single purpose—a concept originally popularized by the iPhone. For example, you can download the Facebook app for your iPhone from the iTunes App Store, but this isn’t the only way to see Facebook on your phone. You can also go to http://m.facebook.com in your browser. Here's what it looks like in each device:
Facebook website on your desktop
Facebook mobile on your iPhone or iPod
Facebook app on your iPhone or iPod
The iPhone app and the mobile optimized site offer very different experiences, but ultimately communicate the same content, just organized in a different way.
The major difference is that http://m.facebook.com—Facebook’s mobile website—is the same experience across all platforms, no matter what mobile device you are using. Whereas the iPhone App is for the iPhone only.
What does this mean for you? When a company looks at the mobile landscape, there are crucial decisions that have to be made; the app or optimized site question is one of the biggest. We can help you sort through these questions and find the perfect solution for your business or organization. Just email us, or talk to your Account Manager.