The amount of smartphone users is quite high these days. Statistical resources prove that it will reach 6.6 billion by 2023, which is 85% of the entire human population. This is much more than laptop users. So, in an effort to discover the finest means of luring new clients, business owners constantly analyze their mobile strategy.
Finding the most lucrative and desirable smartphone alternative for their company is the key problem they need to tackle. Will it be a mobile-friendly website or an app for Android/iOS-based devices? We’ll assist you in answering this question by listing the advantages and disadvantages of each choice.
Smartphone Solution and Mobile Adapted Web Resource: Essence and Common Differences
Starting our smartphone app vs. website research, we’ll delve deeper into the subject and define what is an application for portable gadgets and a smartphone-adapted web resource. Thus, a solution for portable gadgets implies a digital product built specifically for iOS/Android-based smartphones, tablets, or iPads. A mobile website is a bunch of web pages linked between each other and available through a mobile browser.
Web resources for mobile gadgets are designed to be fully adapted to various sizes of the gadgets’ screens. However, their initial purpose is to distribute material, and that’s why more often, they aren’t very engaging. Meanwhile, smartphone applications are developed especially for a single operating system and work best on it.
As a result, designing an application typically costs more than creating a website. Applications may readily operate in an offline mode, however, web resources depend heavily on an Internet connection to function.
We’ve provided brief comparative characteristics of web resources adapted for portable gadgets and smartphone solutions based on one of the two operating systems, but to determine which option is best for your specific circumstances, you need to do a more detailed analysis.
Common Advantages of Web Resources Adapted For Smartphones
A standard website was all that was needed to run a successful business just several years ago. However, as demand and technology evolve, so do the most essential benefits of using them.
- Cutting-costs. A responsive website is cross-platform compatible and uses a single codebase, that is why it is evident its cost is far cheaper than an adaptable website’s one.
- Updating. Since Google or Apple must approve an update before a user can use it, upgrading smartphone apps may take a lot of time and effort.
- One of the key advantages of mobile sites is compatibility. It implies that a person may access your website’s features without installing any additional software on their machine. When compared to mobile apps, which must first be sought for, downloaded, and installed before being used, the browser provides rapid access to everything.
Mobile Web Resources’ Drawbacks
Despite their obvious benefits, mobile-friendly online resources also have drawbacks that should be considered when choosing which digital product is appropriate for everyday business related activity.
- Functional constraints. Remember that mobile websites can’t access as many of a device’s features as mobile apps can when deciding whether to utilize a software developed for mobile gadgets or a web resource.
- There is no opportunity to use sites offline. If it’s a case when a website is completely unavailable, visitors may only see the pages of content that are earlier cached. It is also unable to interact with any of the site’s elements since doing so involves communicating with the server over the World Wide Web.
- User experience (UX). Due to the sometimes poor quality of the Internet sites and the technological restrictions imposed by browser foundation, sites cannot offer the optimum user experience.
The Most Common Benefits of Smartphone Solutions
According to the earlier given stats, people use smartphones rather than laptops or desktop computers. If you want to take advantage of it, you should pay attention to applications for portable gadgets (like smartphones or tablets).
Below, there are the crucial benefits of the smartphone applications you should know about for a proper decision-making process.
- Additional capabilities of digital solutions for portable gadgets (such as smartphones). While highlighting differences of mobile apps and smartphone websites or discussing the benefits and drawbacks of mobile applications, it is difficult to ignore the fact that mobile apps are substantially more advantageous than mobile websites. In this manner, you may use smartphone applications to link the device’s special features, such as accelerometers, if needed.
- Consider creating a mobile app if your product concept requires it to be used without an Internet connection. The usage of mobile web pages for this is not allowed.
- Enhanced customer experience. Because the apps were created with consideration for the target device and OS environment, the use of gestures and native UI components considerably simplifies navigation and usage.
- Promotional opportunities for brands through smartphone solutions. Several businesses from various sectors have used their mobile app as a common form of promotion. For instance, push alerts make it very simple to send critical information and remind clients about essential events in your company.
One of the prominent examples of successful business promotion through apps is IKEA. Their smartphone solution based on augmented reality innovation boosts their company business forward as well as increases sales.
Common Drawbacks of Apps For Portable Gadgets
It’s time to talk about the frequent drawbacks of smartphone solutions.
- Considerable expenditures related to the development process. Because mobile apps have to be created for a specific operating system, they are almost always expensive to build. However, you can optimize your app development cost by leveraging Flutter technology to create hybrid or cross-platform apps and save money by avoiding independently developed solutions for each OS.
- Maintenance and support duties. Software for both operating systems should regularly get updates with bug fixes, enhancements, etc. The actions taken result in a greater need for resources. As the web resources run on a single system, they require less frequent maintenance.
- Complicated approval procedures. No matter the platform, the approval procedure is required for all mobile applications. Nevertheless, you do not need to authenticate your web resource anyplace.
Let’s describe it in considerable detail. Before the iOS-based application can be published in the marketplace for app uploading, it must successfully undergo a rigorous moderation process given the special guidelines. The decision-making process typically takes four days. If the software is easy to use and adheres to all rules, it will then be submitted to the App Store.
The Android version of the authentication process has some peculiarities of its own. The procedure might take a week. The sole advantage of having your application accepted by the Google Play Store is that you will be told of the reasons for rejection and what needs to be altered to pass a verification procedure.
Bottom Line
Depending on the objectives and the resources of the business at hand, you could choose between a smartphone solution and a web resource that is suited for mobile use. For example, some organizations perform everyday business using both a website and a smartphone application.
If you are unsure about which mobile solution is best for your organization, speak with a reliable vendor experienced in software development (both mobile and web one). The IT professionals will provide you with comprehensive advice on all the problems you are facing and assist you in finding solutions by creating a profitable, cutting-edge, and user-friendly digital product.
