Web Apps Are the Future

Native mobile apps are a little weird, if you stop and think about them.

The average mobile app weighs around 20MB, often requires an internet connection in order to be used as intended, and issues several data-heavy updates during its lifetime. Some of these mobile apps have a web version that contains all or most of the same features, at nearly 1/20th of the size.

When you buy a mobile phone, a lot of these apps come preinstalled, and can be difficult to remove from your device. There is an app for every use you can think of, but every download means less available storage on your device. Many native apps have specific and trivial use cases (calculators, alarm clocks, sound recorders), while still having large file sizes and internet connection requirements.

The Problem

Although native mobile applications are useful and entertaining, they’re also a giant inconvenience.

For users, they’re difficult to install because of bandwidth constraints, file sizes, and frequent updates (open your application manager on your phone and see how many of your apps need or have recently downloaded an update). How many times have you had to uninstall an app on your device to make room for a more important one?

Let’s not forget that several mobile applications have web versions that have the same content and capabilities, negating the need for an app in the first place

The Solution

The solution is the browser. Remember when I said that most applications require some form of an internet connection to work properly? Well truthfully, all applications require an internet connection to work properly, because without the internet, you can’t download any applications. We use the internet to download applications and updates for them, and often to send and receive application-related data.

If all our applications depend so heavily on the internet, why don’t we just keep them there? This is exactly what a web app does. A web app relies on the browser and its capabilities to render the application, whereas a native mobile app relies on the device and its capabilities to render the application.

Web Apps Are the Future