The Death of Mobile Applications?
by Dan HarrelsonMichael Mace, a former VP at Palm, recently proclaimed the death of the mobile application. His position is summarises thusly:
“The business of making native apps for mobile devices is dying, crushed by a fragmented market and restrictive business practices. The problems are so bad that the mobile web, despite its many technical drawbacks, is now a better way to deliver new functionality to mobiles. I think this will drive a rapid rise in mobile web development, largely replacing the mobile app business. This has huge implications for mobile operators, handset companies, developers, and users.”
Mace provides a history of the mobile application space as he sees it from his time with Palm. He describes the rush of developers to the Palm platform 10 years ago and how interest in the creation of native apps for the platform has waned. He also quotes a colleague who left the mobile app game because he couldn’t run a profitable business there.
Sorry, but it’s simplistic to assume that native mobile apps are now dead in favor of web mobile apps. Mobile is just seeing the same tension that we see on the desktop between native and web apps. On both mobile and desktop, neither is a clear winner and there are many working to increase the functionally of their application “stack”. Just this week, Adobe launched 1.0 of their AIR platform that further blurs the line on the desktop. It is catching the attention of desktop application developers and I would not be surprised if we see a mobile version of AIR sometime this year.
Does a developer care if their application web or native? I’d argue no, they care about what functionality their chosen framework provides. Look at what Opera is doing with their mobile browser. They are turning it into an application framework as much as a great browsing tool, even giving developers the ability to “widgetize” an app. If there’s something on your mobile that has the hooks you need to build an app, does it matter if the API’s come from a browser or from the operating system? As Webkit builds out it’s offline storage mechanism, your mobile web apps can run seamlessly alongside native apps even when on an airplane.
As the stack currently exists in any mobile OS, native APIs for mobile allow access deeper into the device. This includes the ability to read and write to a user’s contacts, calendar, tasks, photos, videos, SMS, email, camera, GPS and voice. Web browsers lack this functionality. The richness of experience that these features provide provide a ‘wow’ that’s pretty tough to match in a browser.
Browser app or native app aside, the more important change that we are seeing is the opening of the mobile platform. In the article, the certification and requirement to work with carriers was noted as an unnecessary hurdle and I agree. Carriers have a history of stifling innovation in order to milk as much cash out of their pipes as possible.
Apple’s iPhone is an attempt to break that strangle hold by offering a device designed without carrier limitations. This week they release their SDK and if Apple does so with no limitations, then it will be successful. Developers should be able to create an app, upload it to the iTunes store and pick their desired monetization scheme. If Apple puts anything in the way of the interchange between users and developers, then the SDK will fail, just as Michael Mace predicts.
Entries (RSS)
March 2nd, 2008 at 9:53 am
[...] Harrelson takes issue with Michael Mace’s much ballyhooed article this week on the death of mobile applications in favor [...]
March 3rd, 2008 at 11:50 am
[...] Mobile Apps Versus Mobile Web Apps03.03.08 | Comment? I recently wrote a post on the Adaptive Path blog positing that calling native mobile apps dead is premature. This is the stance taken by a former [...]
March 4th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Well, that perspective certainly clarifies their dilemma now doesn’t it. To start as the darling of an emerging mobile market, only to fail to realize its potential, and then complain (er, predict it’s very demise) says it all. Failure to provide (or prove lasting) value is not a market failure, it’s an organizational failure, and that failure is clearly a work in progress.
April 2nd, 2008 at 11:20 pm
[...] Courtesy: http://www.adaptivepath.com/blog/2008/03/01/the-death-of-mobile-applications/ [...]
July 14th, 2008 at 6:46 am
The more mobile phones the more mobile web browsers so I can’t see the difference between mobile java apps problems and interactive mobile web pages.
March 21st, 2009 at 5:35 am
nothing gonna be disapeared it’s just developping Mobile Apps and Mobile Web Apps.
March 31st, 2009 at 4:37 am
mobile applications dead? Hardly. Just look at the winning applications of calling All Innovators contest and you will know what i am saying. Native mobile applications are well and truly alive and kicking.
November 12th, 2009 at 4:39 am
It is wrong to say that mobile apps are dead. in fact they are evolving readily. Thats why you can see so many conferences and seminars keep taking place for developers. Even the upcoming Forum Nokia developers conference is a great platform for developers. they can share their ideas, and present their creations in front of whole world. seeing all this one can say that mobile applications are far from dead.
check out if you want: http://www.nokiadevcon.in/why_attend.php
December 29th, 2009 at 6:30 am
Very nice article.,
But i think today the real problem is lies with mobile application platform. Because developers are developing applications on their respective platform which may or may not support users handset.
Recently i read a article about this that spicelabs India developed a platform MITR which supports third party platform for ex. it supports Java, symbian, windows, blackberry.
so I think developers are now going to develop apps by keeping in mind the third party platforms.
Thankyou