I’m an iOS developer and I will tell you why you shouldn’t build a mobile app
Apple Store today
Apple Store launched in 2008 with 500 apps. Now the count is almost stable at about 2 million units. Not to say that no new apps are being made, but they’re replacing some older apps that were no longer updated by their developers or Apple figured they bring no value to their users and removed them.
It was really easy to get through with your app in those early days. Currently, with so many apps in the store, average American has just about 80 pieces on their device and many of those popular ones are made by large teams of tens or even hundreds of developers.
Getting specific…
Why exactly creating a mobile app might not be a good idea then?
Users don’t have that many apps. Will yours be among ones they want to keep?
Let’s assume for a moment that your app got through 2 million apps on the AppStore and some people have installed it. Phone is a one of, if not the most personal device people have. Oftentimes they don’t want to keep something there, that doesn’t have really great value, does bring some value regularly or both. Are you sure the kind of product you want to offer will be able to check at least one of these boxes?
Can you achieve the same thing other way?
Ask yourself what exactly is the thing that you actually care about. What are you after? Can you achieve the same things other way? Maybe a web app is sufficient. Maybe you already have one and the only thing that you’re missing is a better mobile experience. You can do great things with web technologies these days and it won’t cost you to maintain whole new type of product. Try checking out terms like responsive web apps or PWAs (progressive web apps). Users can add them to their devices’ homescreens and Apple has even added push notification support for them on iOS recently. Plus they live on your server and not Apple’s AppStore, so they can be updated immediately rather than go through days of app review process.
Your competitors already have an app and you need one too?
In my opinion this alone is not a sufficient reason to pull the trigger and start development.
Install their app. Compare it with their web product. Would you want to use it over the other? And even if it’s better, is there enough margin to justify the cost times two?
Try to find their usage data. Does this makes sense for them? Are you sure they’re not cursing the day they’ve made a decision to build that app?
Are you aware of maintenance costs?
Remember that you can’t make an app once and forget about it. Their development costs, but also technologies around which your app is built evolve, so you’ll need to adapt your product to these changes. Also the larger your app is, the more knowledge and skill will be required to keep development pace at decent level.
Is your idea mobile friendly?
I mean mobile is not great for long doubts of constant interaction with your product. If we’re talking about content consumption or a game with simple steering, you’re probably fine. But other than that, remember that user input on mobile is not so pleasant, so you want to be able to get users quickly through the input part, otherwise it’ll be tiring for them. Is it doable with your product?
Discouraged yet? WAIT!
There’re 2 millions apps on the store, so at least some of those folks must not regret them right? What are the good reasons to build one then?
Building engagement
If your business is based on regular interactions with your users, this is a strong argument to consider mobile. Your app will sit in your users’ app library all the time. It’s much harder for your clients to forget about you, if your logo is always somewhere on the most personal of their devices.
You’re also able to send them a notification and provide them with information they need the most at time that’s most adequate. Mobile is able to provide you with information like user’s location, that can help you figure out what that time is. It gives you unique opportunity to learn about users’ preferences and use it to provide him with better service.
Streamlining processes
If your business relies on repetitive actions like placing an order, there may be a chance for you in mobile. Mobile device is capable of providing some extra input and context to your app, like location data or camera images. It can connect with bluetooth devices and has pretty serious media capabilities. On top of that there’s more opportunity to learn about user preferences and store his data.
User is also kept logged in for longer on mobile and in security-sensitive cases we can use biometrics for quicker access, which eliminates further steps for a user.
If you add up all of that, you’re able to make user’s life a lot easier, in some cases building almost magical experiences.
This will make your users much more willing to come back to your product and use it.
Security
While there’s nothing especially insecure about mobile web, native apps will make your users less susceptible to techniques like phishing. It’s hard enough to spot that there’s something wrong with this website address on a big, desktop browser. Entering a password in a crowded place may also not be an ideal scenario.
Native app on the other hand goes through review process, so your users can be sure they’re logging in to the service they wanted.
Users care about access to your product while being mobile
If your product is something that people primarily use on the go, then users will just naturally look for your app in the AppStore - even if you have a great web app, that works perfectly on mobile browsers.
Why is that then? Out of habit? No, at least not exclusively. There are several reasons why a mobile app is objectively better on the go.
Location
While web apps can also access location data, they don’t have such flexibility choosing how often they get this updates and how precise those are.
Easier to get to where you left off.
Users will switch contexts and apps while on the go and you want to make it easier for your users to get back to your content. Mobile apps give you more opportunity to check this box by being better at persisting state and better fitting in how navigation works within mobile OS.
They also can’t talk to OS services, that let them update your users from the background.
Quality of input
As I stated a few paragraphs back - user input is not great on mobile, but even less so on mobile web. This is why native app will help users to enjoy your product.
Final thoughts
Remember that your individual case may be similar in many ways to what other guys went through, but there are always nuances that may make it unique when looking at the whole package. You can tick all the boxes from above and still not create enough leverage.
There’re ways to validate your idea (at least to some extent) without burning buckets of cash. We can help you out with figuring that out.
