
Bye Bye Web, Hello Apps - newsit
http://carsonified.com/blog/dev/bye-bye-web-hello-apps/
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stcredzero
From the post:

 _Mobile is the New Black

I much prefer using the apps for Facebook and Twitter than I do the
traditional websites for these two applications.

The reasons for this are applicable to both cases. I find that using apps on
my iPod Touch is a more personal experience, probably because the online world
I’m exploring is all in the palm of my hand, literally.

I can also access it away from the formalities of a desk. Slouched on the
sofa, sitting in the garden and dare I say, on the toilet. You could take your
Mac Book Pro’s to these places too but it isn’t the same really is it?_

To get it out of the way: Apostrophe S is not a plural!

The main point I wanted to make is this: the smartphone form factor is only
one stepping stone on the path of the mobile computing revolution. Just
_having_ a computer on the same device as your mobile phone has been worked
out. Now we are starting to see the limits of that form factor. No smartphone
is yet or ever will be the be-all end-all device. It's only logical that other
forms are to follow.

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nopassrecover
Very typical of the non-typical web user. We are so immersed in this stuff
daily we fail to realise that most people don't twitter or seek out new ways
to interact with the web.

As for the Facebook app example, the article itself highlights the flaws of
apps - they are slowly updated and lacking in features compared to the live
sites. Try managing your Facebook on the iPhone. Try watching Facebook videos.
Try Facebook chat (it's somehow even buggier than the live site).

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Tichy
Although to be honest, my reality is the opposite: my non-techie friends use
facebook a lot, and I don't...

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solutionyogi
I completely agree. I don't have a Facebook account but all my non-techie
friends have it. In fact, they make fun of me that I don't have a Facebook
account. I was convinced about Facebook's power when I found that my
x-girlfriend's mom in _India_ has Facebook account and that's how she keeps in
touch with her daughters (One is in US, one in Africa and one in Germany).

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davidw
I think the key factor to look at in terms of economics is this:

How much cheaper is it to distribute something as a web app?

With ever more pervasive internet, for a lot of desktop applications, the
answer is "a lot cheaper". For mobile phones, it's probably not _that_ much
cheaper for people, given that they pay for data. If you try and handle
several platforms (S40, S60, Android, iPhone), it is probably cheaper for
companies though, so that's a point in favor of the web. Interesting stuff...

~~~
patio11
I think distribution is the key factor, but maybe not the kind of distribution
you mean. Desktop apps, web apps, iPhone apps, whatever -- getting them to the
customer is so cheap it might as well be free.

The real question is the distribution channel and how that interacts with your
business model. Web apps and iPhone apps both have amazing distribution
channels: Google and the App Store. However, the App Store is really only
amazing for the top sliver of the apps, and the rest get dregs. You do _not_
have to be one of the largest sites on the Internet to make fairly decent
amounts of money on Google. (Additionally, I strongly suspect that even if one
were to look at only the head of the distribution, traditional software
distributed on the web would stomp iPhone apps on pretty much any metric with
the possible exception of "dollars earned per programmer hour invested".)

Now desktop apps, on the other hand, desktop apps have nearly nothing to offer
a developer that a web app can't do better. They can be distributed over the
Internet for cheap! But so can a web app. You can get people to download
them... but you can get people to sign up for a web app, easier. You can get
people to pay for them... but you can get people to pay for a web app, easier.
You can push content updates over the tubes, you can collect usage statistics,
you can leverage OSS, you can... but you can do it all easier on web apps.

Which is a shame... I liked desktop apps.

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davidw
Well, by distribution I mean the whole lifecycle, which you describe rather
nicely, not just the initial download. When you have thousands of users, or
hundreds of thousands, it's so much easier just to upload a few things to a
server and make it live, rather than trying to get some kind of auto-update
system set up. Which means it's cheaper.

