Comments on: App Creep and the Case for the Mobile Browser

By: Welcome Back From Summer Vacation! (You Call That a Vacation!?) «

Welcome Back From Summer Vacation! (You Call That a Vacation!?) « — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 17:00:43 +0000

[...] June 19: App Creep and the Case for the Mobile Browser [...]

By: jason

jason — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 17:25:34 +0000

my opera mobile 10 for winmo got a 57.

By: Escaping Flatland with iOS 4 « Thomas Park

Escaping Flatland with iOS 4 « Thomas Park — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 15:44:52 +0000

[...] iPhone, the screenfuls-of-apps approach keeps navigation simple, but hasn’t scaled well when app creep sets in. With up to 180 apps sprawled across 11 pages, users can end up doing a whole lot of [...]

By: Bill

Bill — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 15:53:57 +0000

None of this will apply until we have some sort of in-browser (web app) marketplace. Everyday (read: non-techie) users aren't going to flock to web apps until there's a centralized, sortable, ratings-based location for them.

By: minimalist

minimalist — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 22:40:06 +0000

I will use web apps in a pinch, but I always prefer a native app hooked into the cloud if its available. The lag, the lack of polish, the lack of platform specific standards always make web apps seem jerry rigged... like they are designed for the lowest common denominator. They work, but I have yet to find one that's a truly great experience when compared to what you can get from a native app tightly integrated into a platform.

Pandora is a perfect example. The iPhone and iPad Pandora apps are a delight to use. The web app (and that horrible Adobe Air monstrosity they mistakenly think I would me to pay a premium to access) are horrible by comparison. I go out of my way not to use them whenever possible. I’ve heard this prediction before that web apps (or cross platform runtimes) are going to save the day. If only it had X technology it would be so much better. But with each new technological revision I’ve been underwhelmed. I understand that to programmers this kind of thing is Holy Grail. It might make a your job easier but the end user experience always seems to suffer as a result of these kinds of shortcuts.

By: Maynard

Maynard — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 21:51:45 +0000

While I can access my Yahoo account via browser, I find that it is easier to access my email from the built-in app on my iPhone. Even if I don't have internet access, I can still read the emails previously downloaded. The UI is easier to use. There are no ads. This may not be a great example because the email app is built-in, but my point is that if a mobile web version of a service was as good or better than a native app, why bother with the app version?

So, if the advent of newer technology such as HTML5 makes the web app function more like a native one, I, personally, expect that I wont have as many native apps installed, at least, in instances where internet access is a key component.

By: The Week We Searched For- June 25, 2010 - Web Design Greece – WEBTEC

The Week We Searched For- June 25, 2010 - Web Design Greece – WEBTEC — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 19:16:37 +0000

[...] Kevin Kelleher authored a witty post this week on gigiacom.com entitled “App Creep and the Case for the Mobile Browser,” in which he discusses the overwhelming number of available mobile apps and the need for a functional mobile browser. [...]

By: augustwest

augustwest — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 19:16:14 +0000

use spotlight search on iphone to find apps

By: Jon

Jon — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 11:58:05 +0000

What you are really talking about with app creep is not the distribution or delivery mechanism (app vs browser), but rather the end-user experience. You can think of the mobile device itself (or the OS) AS essentially a browser for apps. Putting apps within another browser inside this (hardware/software) browser may reduce the number of icons in your app list, but it just shunts them to a 'Favorites' list inside the browser. How does this solve the problem of app creep? Who doesn't have a Favorites/Bookmarks folder that suffers from the same organisational and search problems as any complex system?

What mobile devices need is essentially what is in the Windows Start Menu: an auto-ranking of most used apps (plus any you 'pin') to show up on the front page, plus a launcher/multitasker that loads all your 'feed' apps (blogs, headlines, Twitter, email, Pandora) in the background natively, combined with some kind of smart notification mechanisms.

I rather think that app + browser is an effective combination: apps are more structured/efficient, the browser is more freeform/versatile. You can get both exactly what you need directly without navigating to it on oen hand, but preserve the flexibility to find out unknown things through serendipity/linking/etc.

By: David

David — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 02:49:56 +0000

People are viewing phone Apps the same way they came to view desktop apps -- and if you look at them this way, sure, there's bloat. Who would have 150 desktop apps, many of which are never used? But that's the wrong perspective. Look at apps like for example some random pinball machine you play once or twice in a bar. You might spend $3 for a half hour doing that, and no one would find that strange. But you spend 99 cents on a game that you play a few times on your phone and suddenly everyone is talking about clutter and app ADD, etc. It doesn't matter how many times you use one of these things, they are very often simply ephemeral entertainment, and a bargain at that.