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There is a great article written by Michael Mace about 3rd party apps and how the industry is basically choking this market. I would encourage anyone interested in Mobile Tech to read how Mike sums up the current climate within the mobile market. Mr. Mace says that Mobile apps are headed to be more browser based apps, and less of system apps. He lays out several reasons why, and I certainly am not arguing with him. His whole article makes a lot of sad sense. And he hopes that maybe this will force us to innovate around the mobile browser experience. I think we need to take a long hard look at this experience . . . . Now love or hate the iPhone, Apple has come close to giving the user an almost decent interface on its Safari browser. But it still lacks much to be desired! Palm thought that the answer might lie in its companion device; The Foleo. That one never got off the ground, as who wanted to carry another device to basically do what their phones were already doing? No, what mobile users want is a laptop experience in something that they can put in their pocket. There is much to overcome here! Even though the industry is improving bandwidth, today you only have decent speeds in larger cities. And even there, grabbing your information over a web browser still wouldn't be described as "painless". So until the browser experience improves, I believe there is a considerable market for 3rd party apps, and those apps will make their way to consumers in some way or another. Microsoft has recently stated that they sold 11 million Windows Mobile Licenses this year, and they expect to sale 20 million more in fiscal year 2008. I totally agree with Mike that the market is fragmenting in that you have all of these choices and its hard for a developer to cover them all. But at the same time, I am betting that every smartphone manufacturer out there, except maybe Palm are setting recrods for sales. So even though its harder to build for WM, RIM, Palm, Linux, the rewards when you do are much higher. My Treo 650 and 680 came with a nice OS for the time. But it wasn't until I added Chatteremail, QuickNews, zLauncher and Treo Alarm that it really became useful for something beyond a phone. My HTC TyTN II came with a plethora of 3rd Party software on a CD. Most of it licensed! I think the people building the OSes for these devices recognize the importance of 3rd party developers and will find ways to get these apps to consumers. Handango, and Mobi-hand makes sense. They sale for the developers and everyone wins! The Microsoft and Palm people win because it makes their system more valuable to the consumer. The Developer wins, because he has a gateway to sale his app to the masses. The web site wins because it is making a profit by providing a service to both the developer and the consumer, and the consumer wins because he has an easy way to obtain an app that expands his device. I would love to see the mobile browser improve! But until it does, I believe that everyone recognizes the need for an application that resides on the device itself. When the iPhone was introduced, Jobs had a similar vision . . . Use the Safari browser to do whatever you wanted to do. This was one of the most critisized decisions about the iPhone (along with only an EDGE radio) and finally, Apple is caving in to the consumer to allow for certain 3rd Party apps. I do agree with Mr. Mace, that building apps inside web sites make a lot of sense, would be cheaper on the developer, etc. One app that I think already exists that is similar to this model is Boopsie . Its a very small app that allows you to search Boopsie's web site and depending on your search, takes you to mobile versions of the web sites, such as Wikipedia, Celebrity Pics, etc. This app is fast and one of my favorites, especially for freeware! But I can't see an app like this, replacing my SBSH weather app, or my Flexmail app, given the mobile browser as it is today. But I believe that given time, when the mobile browser does improve . . . and it will as mobile phones get faster data abilities, and designers build more sites with the mobile experience in mind, that many apps won't be apps any longer. But will be mobile web sites where all you have to do is launch a browser or an Icon.
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