Mobile Apps vs Mobile Website: Which one to develop first?
What came first?
The Mobile App or the Mobile Website?
It is absolutely crucial when it comes to choosing the right platform for your debut MVP and be aware of why it has been chosen. This is what makes the App vs Website battle on!
For starters, mobile apps are appealing owing to the functionalities and complexities they involve. But is it really the thing you should begin with. In most practices mobile apps are created after the website has been finished but consider it is your venture, it is your decision to make.
Based on Brainmobi’s experience which has built quite a reputation as one of the best mobile app development company in USA, when it comes to building web, native, hybrid and cross-platform applications for marketplaces, e-commerce and other websites
We have decided to come up with 10 questions you should confront before deciding on which platform to build first.
This guide shall let you have an answer to this question:
10 Questions you should ask before deciding on whether to build an app or a website:
1. Do you aim to reach more users?
Mobile websites aid in reaching more users in comparison to a mobile application owing to the fact that one has to download a mobile application. For this, we have extensively analyzed google search traffic for a company that provides web, mobile analytics and mobile app development services based in the US.
About 21% of their website traffic comes from mobile devices and rest comes from desktop and tablets.
As you dig deeper, it is revealed that Android users make up 8% of the users and iOS make 12% of all the users.
Traffic Distribution for Desktop, Mobile and Tablet
Following this, if we decide to just use the iOS application for a rough estimate that would help you obtain 12% of your current visitors and the corresponding 8% for android. This clearly established the website as the clear winner for the remaining 80% of the audience.
2. Does your user visit your app +5 times a day?
If you think that your users will be using your application a few times a day then it makes absolutely no sense to continue with the application. It is rather more convenient and provides faster access while helping keep users up to date with notifications as well.
Share of time Mobile App vs Web App
The usual barrier that stops people from using the products of the best mobile app development company, is the fact that it might be slow to log in and slow to perform the desired actions. Things like games, notes, to-do lists, reminders, alarm clock, e-mail or social media could be recommended to be used within a mobile application. You are prone to use them quite often during the day and you want your interaction to be free of any sort of lags.
3. Do you need to access phone native features?
Native Phone Features
Camera, gyroscope, sensors are always bound to work better with mobile apps that are built with the native approach.
So if either of these is crucial for your product then you should always consider building a mobile app and not a web app.
However, there are plenty of smartphone features which you can access within a web application as well.
Thanks to technologies like NodeJS and the contribution of mobile app developers you are able to get data in a real-time bit for native mobile apps specifically. But there are still plenty of features that you won’t be able to access. Be it geo-targeted push notifications or in-app notifications when using your web app on your iPhone or Android phone as well.
So even if your web application has access to some of the features of the smartphone it shall always be difficult to experience in comparison to a dedicated native mobile application.
4. Do you care about app speed?
App Speed
Mobile applications are way faster than web applications. The main reason for this is that mobile applications store more user data settings locally on the phone in comparison to web applications. Also, on the other hand, you are able to download data from servers. In such a case of performance, the user’s experience is sure to be the best when it comes to using a particular mobile app development platform.
5. How Complex Is Your Product? — E.g. You have data reports to show
Mobile App Complexities
If you compare two of these analytics you will realize that the first one is when you tend to use a mobile web application in order to view all the complicated reports. Second is when you have a native iPhone application with an optimized user interface in order to display all the data.
In the absence of an app development company, it would be quite painful to address the corresponding features on your phone via a web application. A properly designed mobile application helps address this issue.
If you are also thinking about using your phone for addressing other forms of complex reporting, calculation numbers then you should know that it would be close to impossible within a web app and would never give the experience of a dedicated app.
Conclusion:
Almost any company or entrepreneur is keen on developing a mobile application first which without proper analysis could be a huge mistake as well. It is a much more sleek and advanced way of connecting with users, but as one of the top mobile app development company in USA we would always want you to confront yourself with the above-mentioned questions before you go on to start a mobile application.
There are plenty of reasons that support both reasons on why you should build apps or websites first it requires your serious attention. Even when using modern technologies like node.js can help you achieve a single page application that can be easily accessible on your mobile phone and should be perfectly fine with the product you are intending to make.
