Most
of us are familiar with the message popping up whenever we open a site
or log in to a service, asking us to download their mobile app. And
though it may not be much of a hindrance, in the long run it may lead to
various unwanted developments.
Since,
the launch of the first internet-capable phones and even before that,
there has been gradual transition from the computer as the primary
method to access the internet to much more convenient, portable devices.
You cannot carry the computer for every time you want to look up that
word, or that image on your commute to work.
The
launch of touchscreen phones only accelerated this development,
combining utility with convenience, the phone quickly became an
irreplaceable part of our lives, and also our primary ticket to the
internet. In 2015, Google announced that more people were searching from
mobile devices than from desktop or laptop computers. In 2020, the
number of unique mobile internet users stood at 4.28 billion, indicating
that over 90 percent of the global internet population use a mobile
device to go online.
Traditional
websites were developed for desktops and laptops with large screens and
as such were very inconvenient for mobile users. At first, web
developers circumnavigated this hurdle by designing websites pre-set for
various form factors, whenever a user visited, their browser user agent
would be scanned and they would be redirected to the respective page
for their form factor. Though this process worked, it created several
new problems.
This
method had practical problems and raised privacy concerns. First off,
it was a very tedious task keeping track of the various forms factors in
the market and designing webpages for them accordingly, managing such a
huge number of sites required manpower, even the slightest update
required going through the code of tens, if not hundreds, of sites.
Resolving bugs in the code made the process even more tedious, to carry
out such a task funds were required which many small business owners
didn't have, also due to this method page load times were drastically
high hurting the user experience. Moreover, the ability of a web
developers to monitor the device details of users raised a few, if not
many, concerns. Web developers had to come up with alternatives methods
to tackle this situation.
Several solutions have sprung up over
the decades, some open-source others backed by huge corporations each
with its own way of tackling the situation.
Perhaps the most popular among these many approaches is AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages).
AMP
is an open-source HTML framework originally created by Google as a
competitor to Facebook Instant Articles and Apple News. AMP pages can be
cached by a
content delivery network, which allows pages to load
faster. Google reports that AMP pages typically load in less than one
second and use ten times less data than the equivalent non-AMP pages. In
fact, By hosting pages on AMP, Gizmodo found their pages loaded
three times faster and Mashable saw a
200% increase in average CTR.
There are now more than 31 million domains that have created more than 5 billion AMP sites.
Though
developers could build better and faster sites with AMP and other
techniques there were still many hurdles for them, first off, being
solely website based was bad for business as they were highly dependent
on web browsers, any major change in the policy of a browser required
them to make changes accordingly, for their website to function. This
level of dependency worried developers. Moreover, many users install
adblocking extensions which block the ads on their websites thus cutting
off a major source of revenue for them. They were also limited to the
functionalities of the browser being used by the user and, thus,
couldn't push out extra features without ensuring that the browser
supported it too. These restrictions made developers switch to native
apps.
Native apps give developers more freedom
over their content and also allows them to send push notifications to
the user, constantly reminding the user about their app and their
services even if he has not used the app for a long time, hence, push
notifications are an indispensable marketing tool ensuring user
engagement. Apps also improve customer loyalty as a user more easily
associates with an app on his home screen than a website which he rarely
visits. Native apps also enable offline usage, which is a key factor as
unlike websites you don't need the internet to use them.
According
to Yahoo Flurry’s State of Mobile report, consumers now spend more than
five hours per day on their mobile devices, and 90 percent of their
mobile time is spent in apps. Conversely, consumers’ time spent on
mobile web browsers has declined steadily to just eight percent. Mobile
website visitors are decreasing every day. Keeping this in mind various
corporations have switched to an 'app first policy' where the app is
given more importance than the mobile website equivalent. The extent of
this push depends upon the corporation but signs can be seen almost
everywhere, if one only observes.
Though,
native apps do have their benefits, pushing for apps over websites
gives rise to a whole host of problems. Malware can spread more easily
and can cause more problems as native apps than websites or, even, PWAs (Progressive Web Apps) ever could. As per reports, mobile malware is on the rise with 560,000 new pieces of malware detected every day. Third-party app stores account for 99.5%
of this malware. Also, native apps give developers control over system
resources, potentially, allowing them to siphon off more data than they
ever could with websites, raising various privacy questions as
developers can easily misuse this data if they want to.
Though,
this conversation will have contenders from both sides, with perhaps
more well-informed opinions, it cannot be denied that preference of one
form of content delivery over others and imposing corporate will upon
users will surely lead to problems in the long run.
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