27. Tapworthy Apps...
• Focus on mobile context
• Optimize for micro-tasking
• Use sensors to enhance local context
• Do one thing and do it well
credit: @globalmoxie
Hi I’m Jonathan Stark. I’m a software consultant from Providence RI. I do mobile app strategy, design, and development.
Preaching to the choir, but I want to start with the big picture. Mobile is huge and its growth is accelerating:
- Cell phone subscriptions hit 5 billion in July 2010 (up from 720 million in 2000)
- 15% of phones sold in 2009 were smart phones (17% in 2010Q1 - almost 50% increase over 2009Q1).
- Mobile broadband subscriptions (3G or better) at 360 million in 2009. Ericsson predicts 3.4B by 2015 and 50B connected devices by 2020.
- At this rate mobile broadband subscriptions will overtake wired broadband in a year or two.
- 56% of public Wi‑Fi connections in 2009 were from mobile devices.
Unless you’re a telco or a handset manufacturer, your entry point into the mobile space is apps. One of the first decisions you’ll face is “Which architecture option?”
There are three types of mobile apps that I think will remain relevant for a long time:
- Native apps (e.g. WebEx, SalesForce)
- Web apps (e.g. Gmail, Google Calendar)
- SMS apps (e.g. Google SMS, Twitter, Aardvark)
We could debate the pros and cons of each approach all day long. Ultimately, each has a glaring achilles heel.
Should all boats be made of fiberglass? The right one for you depends on your situation:
- Selling iPhone cases in U.S.? Native app
- Selling office supplies in North America? Web app
- Providing banking services in rural China? SMS app
I want to drill down on a native vs web for a second because I know that there is a lot of confusion there.
Web apps can run 100% offline.
I typically work with corporate clients who are trying to reach a really broad market with their apps. They want to be on iPhone, Android, and Blackberry at least.
- Platform is easy to learn, most orgs have web talent in house already.
- Web is a proven, stabile platform that works reasonably well across the widest range of devices.
- Host your app and email out the links.
- No approval process, no multiple app stores, no delay on bug fixes.
There are a number of javascript libraries that make building mobile web apps a lot easier. iUI was the first, but my lib of choice is jQTouch.
Actually, you don’t have to really pick between native and web. Single code base that can be deployed as a standalone web app AND deployed with addition functionality through the various app stores.
Cross platform mobile framework for building native mobile applications with html, css, and javascript.
PhoneGap support matrix
I think this is the most pragmatic approach. If nothing else, it’s the most flexible. And the way things are growing at this point, flexibility is of the utmost importance.
My good friend and fellow author Josh Clark has a book out called Tapworthy. Josh spends a lot of time reviewing app designs and interviewing developers and has compiled a list of qualities that great apps share.
Wenger Giant: Holds Guinness world record for most multifunctional pen knife.
Made for company’s 100th anniversary to include every gadget ever included in a Swiss Army knife.
87 tools, 141 functions. Cigar cutter, laser pointer, golf reamer.
Bit of humor and whimsy, but as a knife, it’s a failure.
Heavy physical load, heavy cognitive load
Mobile interface: Clarity should trump density, less is more
Josh brings up many great points in Tapworthy, but the one that caught me most by surprise was the notion of putting controls on the bottom and content on the top, because this is the exact reverse of what we typically see in web programming.