Mobile Sites vs Mobile Apps - The Pros and Cons

There’s no denying that mobile devices and internet connections have improved ten-fold over the past few years. There’s also no doubt that the future of IT is swiftly going mobile, along with everything connected to it, such as e-commerce

With this mobile boom, brands have been paying a lot more attention to their websites, specifically how they render on different smartphones and mobile devices. These brands know that they have to do more to satisfy their target audience and appeal to them on an entirely new level. The question is which is better for their brand: a mobile site or a mobile app? Mobile sites are websites that are optimized for a mobile phone browser, while a mobile native app is custom built for a specific phone (i.e. iPhone or Android devices), which users then download and install.

Heated debates often ensue when it comes to deciding whether a company develops a mobile site or an app, but in our opinion this is depends entirely on what products or services it offers and what the primary purpose of the website it. The general rule of thumb is that if you offer something that is used or accessed every day or on a regular basis by visitors, then a mobile app is what you want to go for. Good examples here would be a banking or news and weather website.

However, if your site is primarily e-commerce and users only visit it once-off or sporadically, then a mobile site would better serve your purpose. In this way, people enter a website address in their mobile browser and are redirected to a mobile site. Ultimately though you need to analyse who your visitors are, what their needs are and what devices they use, so you can find out what option would be best be suited for your brand and customers.

With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at the pros and cons for mobile websites and mobile apps, which should give you a better idea of what’s involved and how they work.

MOBILE APPS:

Pros:

• Native apps provide a rich user experience because they have better functionality and they use the features of the smartphone, including the camera, geo-location and users address book
• Generally, because they make use of a phone’s functionality, they can work in offline mode and don’t have to be connected to the internet
• They get good visibility and are discovered through app stores, which also means higher revenue if they need to be paid for before downloading

Cons:

• Because a user has to download (and possibly purchase) an app, they will most likely only do so if they are certain that they’ll use it regularly. Otherwise, it’s just going to clutter the phone uncecessarily
• Native apps are expensive to build and maintain and they require development and testing across multiple platforms as well as approval through the different app stores
• If an app isn’t compatible with all mobile devices, it can restrict the number of users that are reached
• Getting an app approved by a manufacturer is a long and complicated process and there is often very little feedback if an app is rejected
• ComScore’s MobileLens (ending Nov. 2010) indicates that nearly twice as many smartphone users accessed online retail via a website rather than a native app.

MOBILE SITES:

Pros:

• It does not need to be downloaded and installed
• The functionality that used to be accessible only through apps is now coming to browsers
• It’s compatible across all platforms and devices and because it runs in a browser, it’s independent of the mobile device used. For this reason alone, the audience reach is higher
• It is much cheaper to develop a mobile version of your website as opposed to a mobile app
• It’s good for users who find your site while browsing on a mobile device and are automatically redirected to your mobile site
• It can be updated in real-time

Cons:

• A mobile site does not offer the same rich user experience for example touching, dragging and turning
• If a mobile site takes too long to load, it often results in users simply abandoning the process
• Mobile websites aren’t able to make use of the phones features, such as the phone, geo-location or address book