I dislike the whole premise of mobile apps. Why can’t I just use the internet on my phone? Why all of this app account logging in, downloading, updating nonsense? I have to believe that mobile apps will go extinct in the future.
The only reason the idea of downloading applications on a mobile phone made any sense to begin with was because mobile devices and wireless carriers couldn’t handle internet at the speeds needed to make anything useful. Once the internet is faster on phones and I can get the same experience online as on an app then what’s the point of having apps?
Nobody downloads apps on their desktop computer because they can just use the internet. And the internet is a far superior experience than using apps. Think of all the easy things you can do online that suck on apps: linking between sites, buying stuff, and updating a webpage requires nothing from the user.
Apps are particularly challenging for ecommerce sites. You already have people navigating to your mobile site, why build something outside of your site where all your traffic is already going? Once you build an app then you have to advertise to get customers to download it and then find a way to get them to use it.
Apps also give centralized control to Apple and Google over what apps can exist and which apps get downloaded the most. Unless you know what you want, at both app stores you are shown leaderboards to pick from. Search is a horrible experience. Discovery is worse. A decentralized system, like the internet, offers much more opportunity to start ups and diversity to consumers.
Apps suck.
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