Mobile Apps Vs Mobile Website — Which is better for business

With everything coming online, the digital medium of services has grown vastly at an increasing pace. Mobiles are the handiest devices that can be kept anywhere and be carried easily. An app is easily accessible from mobile devices, whereas you have to open a browser to access a mobile website.

With an increase in the number of mobile users, many new apps have come into being. Users have become smart and have started using apps for everything as they are convenient and the easiest to use. Be it for shopping, an appointment with the doctor, an appointment at the salon, or any other service, these apps have been quite useful in most ways.

The number of mobile users is so high that it has outnumbered desktop users. Most businesses either go for a mobile app or a mobile website. Following the current trend, most organizations, especially start-ups go the easy way by creating a mobile app for their product or service. However, there are those organizations that are established and are flourishing well, have money and time to invest in both mobile app development and mobile websites at the same time.

Although both cater to the same needs of the users, a distinction can be easily drawn between the two. Let us take a look at some of the features that draw a thin line between the usage of a mobile app and a mobile website.

1- Customization:

It is very easy to customize things like theme, location, user behavior, and usage behavior of an app. If you are at a certain place, an app can get updated automatically and notify you of the nearby places that might be of interest. The mobile apps help you set your preferences and they work around your likes and dislikes. The recommendations can be updated accordingly and you would see something on your screen that will build your interest.

However, in the case of mobile websites, it is not possible to set your preferences as it is not personal and is accessed by everyone. It does not check your location, neither does it send any recommendations.

2- Mobile devices can be used:

In the case of a mobile app, it is easy to be linked to devices like a camera, call log, compass, accelerometer, GPS, contacts, and more. The use of an app will be more interactive and fun if the users get to access all features of the phone in one place. You have the option of opening your camera and clicking pictures if needed while doing something on the app, whereas, the mobile websites are a little old school in this case.

You have to first save a file to the phone and then attach that file to the website you are using. It is a slow and monotonous process.

3- Notification:

Mobile apps know the preferences of a user and ask for the permission of the user before sending notifications on their phone screens. With businesses growing leaps and bounds, it has become very important for these leading organizations to come up with new changes and let the users know about them. That is when the notifications come into action and prompt the users regarding the new additions.

There are two types of notifications — in-app notifications and push notifications. Both of these are important and interesting mediums of coming into contact with the end-user. While the push notifications are those that appear on the lock screen of a user’s phone, which is sent directly by the company, the in-app notifications are intrusive in nature as they can be viewed only after opening the app. They appear in one of the corners of the app, highlighted with some color.

A mobile website might not always be able to send notifications. There are some softwares’ that help a mobile website to send push notifications.

4- Offline mode:

Most of the apps offer some functions that can also work in an offline mode. They do not necessarily need an internet connection to work. This is one of the most fundamental differences between a mobile website and an app. Both need an internet connection for most of the features, but an app only allows its users to go offline, and access certain features in case an internet connection’s availability is an issue.

5- Designing:

A mobile app is designed keeping in mind the theme of the services, the brand, and the logo of a company. It can be designed in any way. It depends upon your requirement as well as the mobile app development companies i.e. how smartly they work. Just one thing that mobile app developers should keep in mind while designing an app is what operating system is the App being designed for, an android, or iOS. Both are quite different and the apps made for either are made according to the language that is required.

However, in the case of a mobile website development service, the designers have to be careful about the browsers it is being made for. With so many browsers coming into being, it is become difficult to cope up with them and making a website that can comply with all of them. This is a major drawback as not all browsers might support a website.

6- Time spent:

Many pieces of research have proved that the time spent by a user on an app is much more than that on a website. 86% of the time is spent on an app, while the remaining 14% is spent on the website. With an increasing rise in app usage, most organizations have started giving more time to them and have been rigorously hiring people to take care of the app content and technical issues.

Most social media apps have made users bid goodbye to social media mobile websites, as they are always logged in to social media sites through the apps on their phones. All notifications and messages pop up on the screen and alert the user, which does not happen in the case of a mobile website.

7- Immediacy:

A mobile website stands victorious in case of immediacy as it can be accessed anytime, anywhere without having to be downloaded. However, when it comes to the apps, a user has to first download the app from the app store and then fill in the details to get access. This might be a slow and tedious process and might even make the user lose interest by the time he starts using the app.

8- Upgrading:

A mobile website can be upgraded from the backend and the user might not even know of the swift changes that are offered by the websites. However, in the case of a mobile app, a user has to first go to app updates and then update the app. This is a slightly longer process as compared to mobile websites where you don’t have to do anything at all.

9- Shelf life:

The durability of a website cannot be questioned as it cannot be deleted from the phone of a device, or the browser like most apps that are of no interest to the user can be instantly deleted. A user can keep coming to the website in his browser, while an app once deleted will not interest the user anymore.

10- Cost:

A mobile website is more cost-effective than an app, as the latter needs a lot of up-gradation from time to time and inclusions which need special manpower who have excellent command over the technical aspects of creating an app.

With modernization happening in the world, people are switching to mobile apps, but, both the apps and mobile websites have their pros and cons. Mobile website development is like any other website which is used on a desktop comprising HTML and special browser languages, while an app caters to the needs of either android users or iOS users.

A user is an ultimate decision-maker on what is best for him/her as he has to use the app or the website.