Web versus mobile apps…what’s the future?
29 July, 2009 | admin | Tags:app store, google, iphone, mobile, phones
The iPhone - a great device but still a walled garden
There continues to be massive interest in developing for the iPhone App Store but in recent months we’ve noticed a new air of realism kicking in.
While it’s true that some small developers have made significant sums of money out of their applications, most have not. And the realisation that iPhone apps are not necessarily a goldmine, has finally dawned on many would-be entrepreneurs.
What has happened though is that the vast number of apps has increased the value – and hence profitability – of Apple’s iPhone ecosystem.
It’s our hunch that the following rules will apply increasingly on the mobile phone internet
- Open standards will triumph
- Economics will favour web-based solutions over ‘apps’
- Media RSS will be the dominant format for media delivery
- Phones will become increasingly connected and personalised
- Google will be a massive player
An interesting piece – An App for Everything – in today’s Guardian G2 by Stuart Jeffries makes a couple of good points. One is that the App Store is too much like a ‘bucket’ and not enough like a supermarket, making apps difficult to find.
Google is convinced that the future is web-based (of course, they would say that wouldn’t they!). But is is true that in many ways the mobile phone internet is still very 1995, and – especially in the case of Apple – a walled garden.
Browsers are not consistent, access can be expensive, users find it confusing and complex to understand. Could Apple perhaps be the Microsoft that emerged as a standard platform for PC development in the 1980s and 90s? At the moment it is not clear – Symbian, Android, Microsoft and Palm would all vehemently disagree.
It’s our guess that this won’t last. Google Android will probably open the doors to web on mobile fully and there are some interesting handsets coming through that are likely to exploit the web more fully – such as the Palm Pre and Google’s Nexus One, an untethered Android handset. Google Voice is something to keep a close eye on as a possible game-changer.
Tags: app store, google, iphone, mobile, phones
