I have been asked by a client for a slide to compare mobile apps and mobile sites, with the key advantages of each.
The summary:
|
Apps |
Mobile sites |
|
Preload content (no need to download many styles and graphics files) |
Auto detect www traffic and redirect (less marketing) |
|
Alerts functionality |
One codebase when combined with www site, and no need for backwards compatibility |
|
Standard interface components |
Can constantly change & deploy without App Store approval |
|
Easier to exploit mobile device functionality (e.g. GPS, camera, Bluetooth) |
Less need to worry about many different devices (iPhone, iPad, Android – multiple screens) |
|
Real estate (pixels) on user’s homepage on the device |
Wider number of handsets than just iOs and Android (e.g. Symbian and RIM) |
|
Works offline |
Standard web analytics and measurements favoured by advertisers |
|
Can reuse the mobile app framework to create other apps (e.g. Facebook) |
Switching from an App to a browser isn’t as smooth as mobile site A in a browser to mobile site B in a browser |
|
Easier premium charging models |
Quicker to access on first use than an App |
|
Faster User Interface performance |
|
As I went through the research for this project, it recomfirmed my belief that content owners/ brands should not choose whether to build an App or a Mobile site:
The best practice for supporting mobile users
is to build both an app and redirect mobile users from the www site to a mobile version,
with a link to go back to the www site.
There is no passing trade on the Internet. Brands and content owners need to have options to create a relationship with their users on all platforms. This includes mobile app stores as well as mobile websites.
The mobile apps/ web industry is still relatively immature, and for the small incremental cost of building an app as well as a mobile site, brands should consider whether they deliberately want to miss users conducting either a Google mobile search or an App store (or marketplace) search.
There are a number of ways of making the transition and portability costs much lower, to create both options for a cheaper price. For instance, in a mobile app, creating a header and footer that is device specific, and the content between the header and footer in HTML5 (with device specific styles) makes the app much more efficient to port.
If you have any other advantages for apps and mobile sites, please let me know.
Your blog is very Informative.
Visit :-Finnjobs SEO Training Noida