
Will the Mobile Web Kill Off the App Store? - jasonlbaptiste
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/12/firefox-mobile-vs-app-stores/
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CoryMathews
Web will win.

No one wants to make an app for the iPhone, Android, Palm, Blackberry, and
WinMobil when then can just make 1 for the web which all of them can access.

1 Company will never and should never control the way people access
information. App stores allow this while the web does not making it the only
likely future.

~~~
brg
Alternatively, everyone wants to get paid. No one is going to put in the time
and resources to support an app that can not be monetized. And if the
advertising model does not work on mobile phones (perhaps lack of screen real-
estate, perhaps mobile has terrible cpm) then there is no alternative than the
app store.

~~~
jasonlbaptiste
This is a big problem. It will get fixed.

~~~
moe
It's also a rather easy problem.

Web billing systems have existed for ages, I don't see a reason why those
shouldn't work on a phone.

~~~
chc
The problem isn't that they won't work in the strictest sense of the words —
the trouble is that they are a much higher barrier to entry than the App Store
model. I'll readily buy things from iTunes or Amazon because that's as simple
as entering my password, but having to go through yet another billing system
with all the hassles and signups and all that nonsense strongly discourages me
from buying elsewhere.

I would be willing to bet very good money that if you took a best-selling app
from the App Store and created a Web app clone that charged the same price to
be able to use it, you'd see less than a quarter of the sales of the app —
probably drastically less.

~~~
keltex
The answer there is Amazon Payments (works just like going to amazon). I have
to assume that Apple will come out with "Apple Payments" at some point as
well.

~~~
chc
Amazon Payments is a step in the right direction, but even it is more complex.
Here's the App Store flow:

    
    
      1. Click "Buy"
      2. Enter your password
      3. Click "Buy"
    

Here's the Amazon Payments flow:

    
    
      1. Click "Pay'
      2. Enter your username
      3. Enter your password
      4. Click "Sign In"
      5. Choose a payment method
      6. Click "Pay"
    

Bear in mind that the burden of typing is much greater on a mobile (and
especially touchscreen) device, so just having to enter both a username and
password instead of just a username is far more annoying.

There's also the fact that people are very unaccustomed to paying for access
to Web sites (as opposed to buying things off of Web sites). Can you think of
any paid site that's widely used by consumers? I can't. So you actually need
to make it _more_ painless than the App Store, because even if you have
something extraordinarily compelling, you've already almost scared your
customers off just by mentioning money.

~~~
moe
Huh?

There is no reason why the amazon workflow couldn't be made identical to the
appstore flow.

All it takes is a cookie.

Sure, you will still have to go through the long route during your _first_
purchase. But I really think you're blowing this problem out of proportion.

~~~
chc
I think the utter absence of any app successfully exploiting this model
demonstrates that I am not blowing things out of proportion. The burden of
proof is on you to show that consumers are amenable to this model.

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tomwans
As much as I love web applications, sometimes they're simply just not suited
for the task (music streaming, etc.) right now. Even current simple web
applications for the iPhone, like Gmail, aren't perfect (but oh do I love it
over the native Mail client). But with Apple's help in creating (albeit
proprietary) standard for a mobile web app
(<http://ajaxian.com/archives/iphone-full-screen-webapps>), the mobile web
experience should be getting better (why hasn't Google implemented this yet?).
The way I see it, we'll be having web apps and native apps sitting side by
side on our mobile devices for quite some time in the future (if not already).

~~~
raimondious
Exactly. Why do people make false dichotomies in tech so much? People paint a
picture that one technology will completely dominate over another, when really
the interesting thing is the variety. Everything has a trade-off and
everything has its niche.

~~~
roc
Because splitting people into "teams" evokes tribe-response and drives page-
views/circulation/discussion/etc.

~~~
mechanical_fish
To look on the bright side, the same social dynamics drives the competition
between rival strategies, forcing both of them to evolve more quickly.

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zefhous
The whole premise is off base. Neither one has to "win."

Each model has its own strengths and weaknesses, and each will continue to
thrive and be used for its own purposes.

Also, the word "mobile" is overused and is pretty much BS. It's inexact and
short sighted.

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jasonlbaptiste
the app store is a great platform, no doubt about it. 50 million+ phones and
easy monetization.

On the flip side, the web is the larger platform. HTML5 and the like are going
to bring about a new class of applications. I think we'll look back and say
holy shit, apple really kicked off a new way for app developers to think about
how they make money on the web. I'm Long web.

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paul9290
Google is trying with their various web apps they have, but it's a work in
progress. I do not like their latest Google Voice web app. To call a contact I
have to load the app, then load contact page, then load contact Im calling,
then click to call then click to call again? WTH?

The first web version was and is a lot better as you can create bookmarks to
each contact on your iPhone's homescreen. Just click to load contact's page,
click call and it rings you to connect call.

They went backwards with that one. Are there any web apps now that help this
arguement; Google's latest attempt falls short.

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joshwa
With PhoneGap you can have the best of both worlds: using HTML5 and PhoneGap,
you can write web applications running inside of a native shell, including
proxies to native hardware functionality including accelerometers, cameras,
proximity sensors, etc. You can run these apps on iPhone, iPad, Android,
Blackberry, Symbian, Palm, and Blackberry.

<http://phonegap.com/>

This is what I'll be building my apps on.

(n.b. Confirmed by Apple to be in compliance with 3.3.1.)

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Anechoic
Isn't that what Apple wanted in the first place?

<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/06/11iphone.html>

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naner
> “Over time, the web will win because it always does.”

I know we're talking about the web here but this seems like a really foolish
attitude.

