Why Mobile Web Applications Won’t Work Today

The mobile web as an application platform has at the best very limited use. Mobile devices are fundamentally different than personal computers and this difference dictates not only how the devices display information and how the users interact with the information, but how the devices are used. It is critical that application developers understand this difference.

The default interface to the World-wide Web of information is, and has been for over twenty years, Internet browsers. These were originally designed and optimized for PC use. As mobile devices have become common, this interface moved, essentially unchanged, to mobile platforms. The assumption was that the mobile computing experience was essentially the same as the PC experience.

But... it isn't. The most important fact to remember, when it comes to mobile devices, is that they're not PCs. This is not as an obvious observation as one might think. I see companies ranging from startups to large established companies saying mobiles are different but developing as if they were the same.

So what's the difference?

Computers are normally used in fairly stationary, quiet places: at home, at the office, at coffee shops, where the user can mentally leave the “real world' and enter the “virtual world.' In one way people adapt themselves to the virtual world when using a computer. They enter the immersive environment and interact with information, not reality.

the real world. Please notice the word “interrupt'. That is what mobile is all about. When someone calls you, it interrupts you. Same if you receive an email or SMS. Receiving an SMS interrupts you while you are composing an SMS. Typing on your phone as you walk down the street, you have to be alert, to be prepared to be interrupted by cars, bicycles, rain, pedestrians... a thousand interruptions at a time. To be successful, mobile applications have to adapt themselves to the real world, not try to force the user to enter the virtual world. Immersive mobile applications, which require continuous interaction or mental focus, are poorly suited to mobile devices.

The future does have room for 'PC-style web applications' that run on mobile devices, in essence, treating the mobile device as a small, stupid computer with an awkward user interface. However, the true opportunity in mobile is in applications that enhance the user's interrupt-driven life. These applications have to be active, have to understand when to interrupt the user and when not to, and they have to be be easy to use.

Mobile web browsers, as currently implemented, fall short. The browser cannot access the various phones' API's to allow real-life applications to run within, making it difficult or impossible for web applications to do useful things that capitalize on the built-in features of the mobile device. Navigating and operating a mobile web application is fairly immersive, and fairly complex, requiring focused attention and multiple user actions. And finally, data from the web is extremely scattered, and stove piped, contained in isolates silos of information. The average developer would find it a monumental, if not impossible task, to build effective mobile applications that horizontally integrate across different data sources. And this is important; we do live in a horizontal world and for the mobile device to find its natural place in our world, it needs to provide the user with horizontal applications, which bring together different types of data from different sources, and integrate it with the users specific desires, needs, and immediate goals.

My next blog entry I will talk more about horizontal applications.