The Best New Browser & The Middle Child Syndrome
Introduction 👋
When it comes to web browsers, there’s usually not a whole lot going on. Most of us tend to start out with a default browser like Safari and generally stick with it forever. For those who make a switch, it’s generally a switch to Google’s Chrome for its vast array of extensions, multiple user profiles and debugging tools, and it was only after Microsoft announced some great integrations between ChatGPT and Bing earlier this year that people started giving Edge another shot.
But when we put these browsers side by side, there’s not much that stands out. All of them follow a rather generic layout; nothing exciting really.
Enter: Arc, from The Browser Company — a browser which aims to reshape the way we interact with the internet.
Arc has been stirring up a lot of buzz in the tech community for the past few months and I’ve personally been using it full-time on my Mac since February 2023 (yes, since the invite-only days). From a reimagined tab bar, to spaces (similar to user profiles), to boosts (a tool for personalising any web page using CSS), to site search (initiating searches within a website right from the search bar) and a whole lot more, Arc has a very comprehensive arsenal of features which justifies the hype surrounding it! Earlier this month, they hosted a live event where they introduced Arc Max, with some genuinely useful AI integrations that make web browsing a lot quicker and more time-efficient.
That being said, the purpose of this article is not to delve into the browser itself (I’ve linked a few really good articles & videos at the end of this one which cover exactly that), rather, here we’re going to take a look at Arc’s middle child — its “mobile companion”. Sandwiched between the desktop browser release and the newly announced Arc Max AI toolset, let’s try to understand why the mobile app hasn’t quite enjoyed the same success as its desktop counterpart, and think of ways that would make you want to have the Arc app on your phone, stat.
Before we proceed, let’s try to identify the user needs of Arc’s target audience —
A huge thanks to Aradhana Verma for helping me out with the user requirements illustrations!
The Mobile Companion 📱
When The Browser Company released the mobile version of Arc, their intentions for it were quite clear — the mobile app is meant to serve as a “companion” to the main desktop browser and essentially act as a sidebar.
As of the date of writing this blog, the latest version on the Apple AppStore for Arc is 1.08 and here’s a run down of how it works —
- When you open the app, you see a “Recents” tab, which shows a list of the most recent websites visited across all spaces.
- You can then swipe left and right to switch between different spaces and see the tabs/folders that would show up in the sidebar of the desktop version.
- To start a new search, you tap on the search bar at the bottom — to save this tab to a particular space, you hit the little pin icon and select which space you wish to save the tab to.
The target audience for the Mobile version would vary slightly from that of the desktop browser. Apart from the user requirements mentioned earlier, the mobile browser also targets “casual users” who just need a quick & easy-to-use app to look up something on the net. The top priority here should be providing users with a very welcoming and usable UI, with the added benefit of the availability of a vast feature set.
Business Objectives 💼
Let’s take a look at the business objectives of The Browser Company as a whole. Here are a few which should be really high up on the list —
- Market Share Growth — Being a new browser in town, they would want to make a significant splash in the browser market and continue expanding.
- User Acquisition — For this, they really need to stand out from the crowd, and this is something that they do very well with the desktop version by offering a plethora of features and a unique tab management solution.
- User Retention — Once they get people onboard, they need to provide a consistent and steady experience to back up all the bells and whistles which brought in those users, and retain them. The early adopters build a loyal user base which helps in further expanding the adoption of the browser.
- Cross-Platform Compatibility — Arc being a Chromium-based browser means it is compatible with a lot of Chrome extensions, making the switch easier for a lot of existing Chrome users. On top of that, while Arc is currently out only for Mac, a Windows version is in the works. As for the mobile version, we’ll take a closer look at how that integrates with their ecosystem in the upcoming sections.
Product Objectives 🎯
Now, let’s assess the Mobile version of the browser as a separate product. I’ve listed the top product objectives that come to mind in this context —
- Mobile Browser Market Penetration — Most people these days spend more time on their phones rather than on their laptops / PCs, thus, it only makes sense to have a mobile version of the browser on a more frequently used platform.
- Maintaining Identity — The USPs of the desktop version also need to trickle down to the mobile variant to attract users in the first place; the shiny new features are the biggest incentives for getting users onboard to try out a new browser.
- Boosting Desktop Adoption — It doesn’t take long to realise that Arc is like the browser equivalent of a Swiss Army knife, and is mainly targeting desktop users (power users). However, being available on mobile devices gives it more potential visibility, which could further translate into an increase in desktop users by acting as a gateway.
- Aiding User Retention — At the time of using Arc during its invite-only days, one of the things I missed most about Safari was the continuity factor between my iPhone and my Mac. Arc helped bridge that gap with the mobile version, but it’s not quite perfect. I’ll elucidate this in the following section.
The product objectives mentioned above tie in well with the company’s business objectives. Achieving the product objectives directly translates into an improvement in market share growth, user acquisition, user retention and cross-platform compatibility. It provides an opportunity to showcase The Browser Company’s vision of an ideal, truly personal and powerful browser on a new platform.
Pain Points 🤕
When the mobile version of Arc came out on iOS towards the end of March 2023, it had some serious expectations to live up to. The desktop version set the bar high when it came to standing out from the crowd, and the same was expected of the mobile version. Unfortunately, that wasn’t quite the case.
In summary, there are two primary factors at play —
1️⃣ Non-Intuitive UX — The mobile browser is not the most intuitive to use. Dealing with tabs and new searches is quite perplexing. It takes a while to understand how to go about the app, even though the layout is seemingly simple — what happens when you start a search within a specific space? What happens when you close a tab? Arc for mobile has a learning curve which requires a bit of time and effort, but ideally, you want a mobile browser to be quick and easy to use straight out of the box.
2️⃣ Missing Features — When it comes to features, the v 1.0 was… lacklustre, to say the very least. But that’s not much of a shocker as it was the first release, and at the time I thought “Surely we’ll get features added on with time, right?”. Well it’s been about 6 months now, we’re sitting on v 1.08 and there is still quite a bit that’s missing, and not only in comparison to the desktop version, but even basic things you would expect any modern-day mobile browser to have, like —
- Reader Mode
- Incognito Mode
- Bookmarks
- History Tab
- Split-View Search
- Site Search
The biggest thing going against Arc’s mobile browser right now is its identity — the mobile “companion”. It seems that the folks over at The Browser Company had a very clear idea of what they wanted this product to be, but that has in turn erected barriers, limiting the potential of the mobile browser.
As we established earlier, the mobile browser needs to target casual users just as much, if not more so than the niche group of power users, and for that they need to provide a seamless and truly fluid experience between the desktop browser and the mobile browser; yet at the same time, the browsers also need to be independent, stand-alone and fully functional on their respective platforms and not be restricted in terms of usability in the name of cohesiveness.
Think of it this way — what if a user first comes across Arc for mobile before trying out the desktop version? There really isn’t much going on for the mobile app to convince that user to keep using the product, let alone download the desktop version.
Solutions 🛠️
Looking at the two main issues identified above, it’s only a matter of time for the latter (missing features) to be patched. The missing features mentioned are all well-established ones, with well-defined objectives and are mostly deployed on all other rival platforms. So, this is just something for the devs to integrate into the mobile app and for all we know, this process is probably already underway right now.
This leaves us with the non-intuitive UX problem, stemming from the broader ‘lack of identity’ issue. So let’s get straight into re-working the identity of the mobile browser app! Rather than just being a companion to the desktop version, the mobile app should be an equal to it.
To achieve this, a few things need to change —
1️⃣ More Control — We start by giving the mobile app the ability to perform Arc’s core functions like creating a new space or modifying existing spaces, creating and editing easels, etc. Of course, not all the things can be carried forward (like boosts, custom keyboard shortcuts, etc.) because of platform limitations, but there are ways to bring the USPs down to the mobile app —
- Split-view browsing can be implemented horizontally
- Site search can be implemented by swiping across the search bar after entering the supported website names and then continuing the search
- Even Arc Max’s features like 5-second previews can be implemented using haptic touch to generate a summary instead of giving a website preview
2️⃣ Mobile Space — A default space for all the tabs to go to, if they’re not pinned to a specific space. This space should also sync with the desktop version, where its visibility can be toggled on or off.
3️⃣ Mobile USP — While the mobile platform has its limitations, it also has its strengths which we should play to. Mini Games. I know what you’re thinking, but hear me out. What better way to differentiate the mobile app from the desktop version than by integrating very basic games similar to Dino Jump or Flappy Bird or Tic-Tac-Toe in the mobile app? Better yet, make them randomised and available offline (optionally) so that users have something to do while they wait for their phones to get connected to the internet. We could also have a daily/weekly global leaderboard.
While these proposed changes would definitely help fix the identity issue, they would also have a broader impact by inherently aiding the attainment of the product objectives laid out earlier. Let’s further analyse the proposed changes individually using the RICE scoring model.
This model comprises four components — Reach (the number of users who will be affected by the feature/change), Impact (the extent of the effect of the change on users & business), Confidence (the level of certainty in the estimates for both Reach & Impact) and Effort (the amount of work, time & resources required to deliver the proposed changes). Once we have assigned scores for these components, we calculate the Priority using the formula —
Priority = (Reach x Impact x Confidence) / Effort
With this, we can prioritise the three changes in the order of Mobile Spaces, followed by More Control, followed by Mobile USP.
Success Metrics 📏
There are a bunch of metrics that can be considered to measure the success of the mobile application, such as —
- The number of Daily Active Users (DAU), Weekly Active Users (WAU) or Monthly Active Users (MAU)
- The number of tabs pinned to spaces from the mobile app
- The number of bookmarks being imported by users from different browsers into Arc
- The number of spaces being created
- The number of easels being created
The implementation of the proposed solutions should translate positively against the metrics mentioned above. But on the flip side, there could also be a negative shift in productivity. This could arise if the rate at which users add tabs to spaces (which would now get boosted by the convenience of the mobile app) exceeds the rate at which they later revisit those tabs and archive them.
Thus, we also need to monitor a Guard-Rail Metric — the number of active tabs per user. It is important to carefully monitor this metric and make sure there aren’t any drastic changes with it after the implementation of the proposed changes.
Conclusion 🎬
I’ve never seen the tech community get this excited about a web browser, and that goes to show just how impressive Arc is. The best part is, it’s not just about a great product, but the fact that there are weekly updates to the web version (oh and I’ve got to mention, Arc has the best release notes of any product by far) and the team genuinely encourages feedback which it implements, it really gets you involved with the product on a personal level — you want it to do well.
An example of this is the Credits page they put up at the end of the invite-only days as a shout-out to all those who helped beta-test the web browser along the way!
Of course, Arc is still in its early days and that is likely the reason why they’re not able to scale development for multiple products & projects at the same time, hence why the mobile app has taken a momentary back seat.
I’m sure they’ve got the roadmap planned out and the mobile app will eventually come under the spotlight, and maybe some of the changes I’ve mentioned might actually see the light of day!
It was a lot of fun writing this blog, especially since I use the product on a daily basis. I’m always open to feedback and would love to hear some of your takes on the matter of Arc’s mobile browser :)
Additional Resources 🔗
- Overview of the Arc Browser [Video] — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PraWH0T2iJ4
