To kick start your business brand, your presence on mobile devices is a must since more and more users are deviating from desktop usage to mobile usage due to the portability of mobile devices. But the question of the hour is, whether you should develop a Mobile Website or a Mobile App.
This depends on a lot of factors and may vary from company to company. What you should keep in mind is what your aim is when it comes to having any of these or both.
Before knowing your business requirements, understand what Mobile Apps and Mobile Websites are and the benefits and drawbacks they come with. After this, map it to your requirements to make an informed decision.
Mobile Website:
Just like the websites we access on our desktops, mobile websites are a collection of web pages which are linked together and can be accessed through browsers in our mobile devices like mobile phones or tablets through an internet connection.
Mobile Websites are made specifically to work on these smaller devices with an added interface for the touchscreen.
These days, websites with responsive web designs are used widely due to their enriched user experience in which they can be scaled in size from desktop to handhelds, keeping the user experience intact.
Mobile Apps:
Mobile Apps are the applications which the users have to download from the app marketplace in respective devices e.g. Play Store is the marketplace to get mobile applications for Android devices, while App Store is the counterpart for iPhone’s.
Advantage and Disadvantage:
Check out the advantages and disadvantages of websites and apps and then decide which one is the best fit for your business.
Accessibility:
- Mobile Websites are easily available through a browser on any device. A user doesn’t have to go through the hassle of searching up in the marketplace to access information. A mobile website is just a click away!
- On the other hand, a user has to search and then download the app from the respective marketplace, install it on the device and only then can start using it.
Compatibility:
- A responsive website is available for all the devices and a single implementation will work for all the operating systems without any issues.
- Different versions of apps have to be developed to ensure device compatibility for multiple platforms.
Updating:
- If you want to change any functionality or content or design of your website, the changes can be done easily and can be updated instantly in just a few steps.
- Changes have to work out for all the different versions of an operating system when it comes to updating an app. Also, the publisher has to push notifications to the users for updating the app on their device.
Ease of Search:
- The target audience for your mobile website can easily search it in the browser.
- In case of apps, the search results depend on the application store of respective manufacturers.
Ability to Share:
- Websites can be shared easily with the help of the URL through various mediums like SMS, FB posts or Twitter.
- App sharing can’t be done like this.
Cost, Support and Maintenance:
- Websites are effective when it comes to saving cost and time compared to Apps which need to be developed for all platforms with changes.
- When it comes to maintenance after deployment, the Websites are easier to maintain than Apps.
These are the primary things to consider while choosing between Apps and Websites but the trend is changing now. Here are a few other things to keep in mind before finalizing.
Surveys conducted regarding time spent on mobiles showed that 90% of this time is used in mobile applications for android and other platforms. More importantly, this will keep increasing in the coming years.
You should have an App instead of Website when:
- If you require highly interactive design, then building mobile applications for Android or iOS is a win-win, e.g. gaming apps.
- There are certain things which are peculiar to each one of us and in that case, the mobile app development services provider can provide us with variety of customization, as the Apps are very well-equipped to provide the same as compared to Websites. The reason for this is the fact that the mobile applications for android or iOS can access the device functionality easily and have access to our location, camera and phone data, e.g. Apps like Color Note help us to make to-do lists, generate reminders or apps that use the device location to provide seamless services.
- Mobile application development services providers can develop apps that can help us to generate reports and calculations when it comes to managing our daily finances by using the phone data and giving back the final result, e.g. we would prefer Split wise (monthly bill tracker) App over its Website version.
The main advantage of Apps over Website is, mobile app development services providers are now developing the apps that can be used even without an internet connection, in an offline mode, which makes their usage even more popular.
Conclusion:
After going through all these points, you can enlist your business requirements and then contact a mobile application development services provider. If your target is a wider reach in less budget, go for Mobile Website. However, if you want a user-friendly, customized user experience, while making use of the additional features offered by platforms for mobile applications for android and others, then go for Apps.
There is no harm in having both at the same time. Hope the information is helpful to make the right decision.
