Is There An App For That?
Is there an app for that? This has become a common question in the past few years that is usually followed with, “Yes, for the iPhone “. That is actually a very big problem. Currently iPhone is the hot device to create an app for. The problem is, iPhone only holds a 23.1% market share vs Blackberry’s 39.3% and Android’s 17%. iPhone has a good amount but ultimately it is a small market share. So who do you create your app for?
Well all of them right? In a perfect world yes, but each of these platforms require their own coding platform. This means they all require their own separate development and are difficult to port over to other devices. Creating the app individually for each device will be very time consuming and expensive.
Well base it by percentage of users right? The problem with this is that Blackberry and iOS are currently losing market share to Android. So you don’t want to base it on that. Also who knows what will happen in the next coming months, especially when Windows Mobile 7 comes out. Will it be a success and take a good portion of the market share? Only time will tell.
Ultimately your left at a stand still. Who do you develop for?
Well there is a cheaper and easier solution then programming for each device. There has been a great movement towards what is called mobile web applications. These are apps that are essentially websites that act like fully featured applications.
Mobile web apps look and act like an actual mobile app but are actually websites. These also work on all phones whether it be an iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile 7 or Blackberry and require only one development. They are also based on common languages like HTML, CSS and Javascript.
Everyday more and more companies are developing mobile web applications. Some of the best ones out there currently are.
So next time you think about developing an app, you might want to look into creating a mobile web app. It could end up saving a fortune and can give you access to the largest possible audience.
