The case against apps

From the article: "Additionally, Apple and Google have tight control over which apps make it into their inventory. These factors result in a system that is not exactly an innovation breeding ground. The real innovation has already happened -- the creation of the marketplace itself."

Which shows exactly where the author goes wrong. The innovation isn't in the marketplace, it's in the platform - iOS or Android. Specifically, apps allow much richer user interfaces than what you can do on the web: geolocation, movement detectors, always-with-you, gesture support and so on. They also allow much greater control over things such as usage of resources, allowing a better user experience. Quite simply, from a programmer's perspective, web apps are a long way from providing the necessary tools to come even close to equaling those available on mobile platforms.

The fact that there is a marketplace where apps can be sold is probably one of the least innovative things about apps.

To paraphrase - "It's the platform, stupid!"

Having skimmed the article, I find that the author is the victim of his own poorly chosen title. (Or his editor's choice of title.)

This is no generic argument against apps. It's an argument against apps in the specific context of publishing, and mostly prose publishing at that. That is a rather stronger argument to make. The web browser was designed as a surfing tool for writing and that is still its strong suit. The best app for browsing text is the browser, though admittedly this point is often lost because the browser is routinely abused to deliver crappy ad-festooned design disasters. (The best alternatives to browsers, like Instapaper, are arguably just browsers with very strict style guidelines.)

I've got to agree with a lot of the sentiment here.

I've got ... a few apps on my phone. Most were pre-loaded.

The big ones: "phone" (that's an application, really), browser, email, SMS, maps, agenda, contacts, camera.

Some administrative / management apps: configuration, WiFi, tethering, torch/flashlight, audible/vibrate/silent/airplane mode select.

Some informational apps: a few commute schedules, calculator.

Radio, music, ssh client. That's 99.99% of my usage right there. A few others.

Notable failures: an RSS reader. Problem: too many feeds offer too little content. I'll just hit the Web.

I've just added a G+ app.

There are a few other odds and ends I might use once in a blue moon, but rarely.

There's only so much time, and for I/O, phones suck. They're good from a here-and-now perspective, but not much else.

I'm seriously paranoid about the data on my phone, and either losing or leaking it. There aren't any particularly good solutions (from a "works" and "I'm comfortable with") perspective.

The notion of app proliferation reminds me of the small-app PC market of the late 1990s (about the time Free Software was taking off). In the Linux/BSD world, duplicate effort generally resolved with one project dominating or two projects merging (there's still some duplication, but not tons). While everyone and his kid brothers dog writes a caculator app for Windows. Which ... don't share data with one another. I see the mobile app world as very similar, and strongly suspect it will consolidate to the Web (for informational stuff) with some exceptions (UI or data requirements dictate local intermediation).

This articles arguments, like most I've read heralding mobile web apps over native ones, really only applies to content already on the web (eg. his Wired example). In that context it makes sense. In the more common context of a developer wanting to build a, for example, load bearing calculator for structural engineers, those arguments make no sense.

Developers flock to the Market and App Store because they offer two things: discoverability and compensation. Chrome Web Store has tried to be a solution for webapps here, but really those issues still stand for webapps. And to be honest, with the sheer number of apps in the App Store, and Market's search issues, I'm beginning to question whether a discoverability advantage still exists.

It's interesting how mobile has totally reinvigorated the notion of stand-alone apps. On the desktop, stand-alone apps were going the way of the dinosaurs - everything was moving to the web. Web apps are easier to deploy, easier to support, easier to control access to, and there's no more badgering users to upgrade. The main drawback was the more constrained UI experience. Now suddenly apps are all the rage again, thanks to mobile. I wonder if eventually the advantages of web deployment will win out in the mobile space as well, once the novelty of apps has worn off.

You're still here, writing these articles about how the mobile app economy is somehow going to disintegrate in favour of a return to web apps? It's over. Go home. Go.

Well shucks.

So when they say 'apps', they really mean 'mobile apps'. Is this yet another battle the techies have lost against popular media?

I'd like to briefly point out that the "economic oligarchy" argument is just a special case of one of the classic Marxist arguments against capitalism in general. Take that as you will.