This August, while speaking at the Mobile Javascript Summit, I came out in my presentation as Appnostic, stating that the mobile world is too young for us to get set in dogma on the subject of mobile web vs. mobile native apps but instead we need to be pioneering on all fronts of mobile development and creation. I don’t care if one is creating/developing a mobile native app, a hybrid app, or a web app / site, what really matters is that the human who owns the mobile has a good to great user experience, accomplishment of tasks, and an element of delight. Let’s create, design, and develop in a way that delights the mobile user and moves all of us forward.
Much of the web only for mobile rhetoric is not only limiting but a bit absurd when taken to the logical end. How many of the mobile web only folks would work only in their computer’s browser for every activity, professionally or personally, for months on end? Why ask that of the mobile owner that every task and activity should be accomplished only in the browser?
Two recent articles have pinpointed that now is the time to pioneer mobile design:
Cennydd Bowles makes a clear and concise argument that we need to build and innovate for mobile be it web or native apps:
“No one has this problem about native desktop apps vs. web apps. The same people that decry native mobile apps use Coda, Photoshop, and OmniFocus. Native enthusiasts use FreeAgent, Google Docs, and Basecamp without a second thought. In the desktop world, we already know that whether a native or web app is better depends on what it’s for.”
Go read it.
In another recent article in the Guardian piece on Nokia’s Design EVP, Marko Ahtisaari, makes a great point about giving the mobile user choice:
One of the glories of a mobile is that it is particularly personal and the user should have the choice to use their mobile as they so choose, not how we choose for them. Maybe you prefer to do things in your mobile’s browser, but your next door neighbor loves loves loves native apps, dowloading them mostly but loves ’em anyways. Maybe you have only one ecosystem you will use and all of your devices use that one OS, but maybe your neighbor has a MacBook, an XBox, and an Android mobile and doesn’t care if they are different OSes, in fact they prefer it that way.
The mobile world is still very young and let’s not fight for a small slices of professional territory but instead let’s create great human centered user experiences and happy mobile owners rather than getting set in our ways so early.
