Comments on: SXSW Is Apptastic!

By: Ulous

Ulous — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 19:52:46 +0000

Bravo! I just wish you could say that to my pretentious little brother who thinks he owns a “company.”

By: Fab

Fab — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 13:29:00 +0000

was there saturday. feels like the dot bomb echo chamber all over again. bunch of 20 somethings with a feature that they think is an app, or worse, a company. drink all night, stagger in sometime in the afternoon (shower optional), do email, stick your head in one session (same talking heads all the time … when do you panelists actually do anything other than promote yourselves?), breathlessly and incessantly pitch your “app” to anyone unfortunate enough to NOT avoid you, repeat. sigh.

By: Renaissance Man

Renaissance Man — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 13:28:15 +0000

A big advantage web apps have is not being beholden to app store guidelines (and the percentage the store will take).

From a programmer’s perspective, native apps are the way to go – you have so much more control over the environment, and can get way better performance.

That being said, I think the key determiner for me is who the target audience of the app is, and where are they most likely going to need/want to use my app. I have two projects going on right now – one is a native app, and one is a web app.

By: Ralph Haygood

Ralph Haygood — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 07:53:23 +0000

Native apps do have access to more phone features (e.g., Bluetooth), but the main reason I plan to release native apps for my service CardVine has to do with the behavior of humans, not the behavior of apps. It’s simply that many people habitually look in app stores, especially the iTunes store, whenever they want to do something new with their phones. Many of them don’t even understand the difference between web apps and native apps. Even at SXSWi, where you might expect everyone to understand such things, they don’t.

By: Ralph Haygood

Ralph Haygood — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 07:42:29 +0000

I’ve seen a few. I saw one company presenting themselves on Windows phones, although they have Android and iPhone apps too. I asked them about it, and they confirmed what I expected: Microsoft sponsored them.

By: Andy Pickett

Andy Pickett — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 04:35:33 +0000

For our game QONQR (Sxsw Accelerator Finalist) we chose the HTML5 + geolocation route to prototype our beta. Well iterate in html till we get the gameplay and flow just right. As an indie game studio we chose Webapp for wide availability and early feedback over rich and speedy, but longer to dev, native apps.

That said our native versions WILL be in dev immediately following the final web version. The rich UX and AppStore/marketplace discoverability is too hard to beat.

By: arjun

arjun — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 19:11:17 +0000

I know I’m a luddite when it comes to apps (thank you blackberry) but why should apps be the defacto environment to build for? I understand the numbers (smart phones + tablets >> laptops + desktops) and time spent (apps ~= or > web browsers) but unless you believe your target customer is more mobile than stationary why would you have only an app version and no web version?

From a UX standpoint an app is good if there are few choices to make, there’s minimal text entry and there’s an inherent location based element to the app. Otherwise generally the full web version should offer a better UX. What am I missing? thank you.

By: Keith Erskine

Keith Erskine — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 14:10:50 +0000

While I used to think that mobile web sites would eventually be the way to deliver services, customers have chosen mobile applications served through App Stores. Product strategy should be ‘Mobile Apps’(iOS, Android) first, with “mobile web’ a close second to cover the other platforms (RIM, WinMo7).

By: Ralph Haygood

Ralph Haygood — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 03:41:48 +0000

“The only sad part is that mobile has become synonymous with an app.” Not for me, either as a user or as a developer. The most-used app on my Android phone is still the Google Reader web app. I tried the native app, but I found it less convenient. And CardVine Mobile, the mobile-specialized interface to the virtual business cards service I just launched, is a web app. I do plan to release native versions of CardVine, but I have no intention of abandoning the web app, which will always get new features and bug fixes first.

By: dagamer34

dagamer34 — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 03:14:38 +0000

Websites that require a specific web browser (or device). Yeah, that’s real encouraging.