Apps are sooooooo 2013.........

[Jcmg62]

A couple of months ago I was going on holiday and decided to download a few movies on my ipad mini to enjoy on the beach .........problem was, my ipad only has a 16GB drive and there was barely 3GB of space available. So I took the plunge and embarked on a "delete without mercy" purge of my apps. I deleted dozens of apps.....literally dozens.

Now here's what's interesting; I've not downloaded them again in the six or so weeks I've been back. The reason for this is twofold:

1. It turns out I much prefer my ipad with a clean interface, as opposed to loads of apps cluttering up the system

2. I don't miss those apps one little bit, even although I was using them almost daily.

The reason I don't miss those apps is because I've since found out that the things I was using them for (shopping, news, banking, weather, travel, social networking) are all available on the web. And these websites are infinitely better and often far more up-to-date than the official apps.

So I tried the same thing with my lumia 1520 (running 8.1) and ditched a load of apps...everything to do with banking, shopping, social networking and news....even 9gag went in the bin

The only apps I've held onto are Here Maps, Spotify and a few games.....everything else is gone.

I appreciate that this sounds obvious....we all know that pretty much all major retailers, news and weather channels and social networks have solid, well built websites.

But what did surprise me is how adapted these sites have become to tablet and smartphone users. I'd pretty much assumed that it was only possible to enjoy news broadcasts or social networking via an app, because that's the way the mobile market has been moving for years.

To give an example, I've had the official BBC news and Sky News apps on my ipad for at least 2 years, and because of this I hadn't bothered to check out what their mobile websites look like. I was shocked at how good these mobile sites were.

What's worth pointing out is that these sites need a solid platform to work from.

Yesterday I came across this article which pretty much re-affirms my findings.

Why do we need apps for Facebook, Walmart, NatWest or Ebay when the mobile version of their own website offer a far more enhanced user experience? And its out there right now, free to use, no installation required, no need to worry about hard drive space being gobbled up or the app being abandoned and forgotten by the developer.

As a WP user all we hear about is how Microsoft is trailing with apps in the store.......and I'd be the first to say that it's always awesome when a cool new game makes it to the platform or an official partner like instagram comes on board, but I don't think MS needs to sweat it too much. The way in which we find and view information on our mobile devices is changing and Microsoft have our bases well covered with IE11.

That's my pro IE11 rant over, but do check our the tech radar article about the death of the app......it'll be interesting to see how app developers respond to a shift toward the mobile web.

 

[N_LaRUE]

This debate has been going on for some time. A recent article I read indicated that most people prefer an 'app' experience over a mobile web one. Not sure if this had to do with being app brainwashed or if they actually knew they could access these sites without an app is another question.

We are used to the idea of apps, not because of Apple's 'there's an app for that' but it's the way we think a computer works, you need an app to do things. Which is true of course.

The simple truth is, some will like apps, some will like a mobile web experience. You need to have both available. Not all web sites are mobile friendly, as we know. Also the experience on some apps are significantly better than the mobile site. So there's no easy cut off.

So it's great that you personally find the experience suits you but as we all know, it won't suit everyone. Some will always believe an app is better.

 

[Jcmg62]

This debate has been going on for some time. A recent article I read indicated that most people prefer an 'app' experience over a mobile web one. Not sure if this had to do with being app brainwashed or if they actually knew they could access these sites without an app is another question.

We are used to the idea of apps, not because of Apple's 'there's an app for that' but it's the way we think a computer works, you need an app to do things. Which is true of course.

The simple truth is, some will like apps, some will like a mobile web experience. You need to have both available. Not all web sites are mobile friendly, as we know. Also the experience on some apps are significantly better than the mobile site. So there's no easy cut off.

So it's great that you personally find the experience suits you but as we all know, it won't suit everyone. Some will always believe an app is better.

I would agree, it's very much a personal thing, which is where MS have got it right with the ability to pin websites as tiles....and call them up with cortana....that's always fun

Pinning a site to the home screen makes the website version of.....ebay for example.....as easy to access as the official app.

I really think that MS have the right formula here.....they're actively pursuing developers to create apps that add value to the platform, while creating an outstanding browser like IE11 and giving you the opportunity to pin those sites to the home screen. I'm not sure if the website pinning option is available in Android or IOS, but its fantastic in WP.

As to the fact that every good site needs a good browser.......Chrome and Safari are a miles behind Explorer.

 

[Ixia]

It bugs me when I visit a site on the Ipad and I get a nagging pop up saying we have an app, would you like to download it...erm, no why would I? the web site is better which is why I was there in the first place.
That said, on WP8, I like the Ebay app because of it's notifications, Three's app because it easier and I tolerate the Facebook app because I can't post photos from my phone on the website. Most of my other apps are games and photo editing stuff.