The near term mobile future

We have nice things, let’s make them even better

The time has passed where you can proclaim “mobile is the future” without looking like a master of the obvious. Instagram was only the first of many mobile-first app successes. Their web presence was almost non-existent, save for a link to a download page and some API documentation. The future looks more like Instagram, not less. There are however a few roadblocks along the way to a smooth mobile future.

100% available except when it’s not

Mobile apps are great but they reintroduced installing software. By contrast, the web always has your back. The web is always there when you need it (unless you don’t have a connection then you are mostly screwed). Wifi everywhere or cellular services baked into devices seem to be bridging the gap. This is the core trade off between mobile apps and the web. However, when I have access to the web I have access to all of it. 100% of the web is available if I have that connection and no one is ever going to have an all access pass to every app on their iPhone/iPad/Android at any time. When you have more than a few screens full of apps, you begin to get stares (and lost as a user trying to find your apps).

Those of us who have spent a majority of our careers creating as open a web as possible are driven crazy by the simple fact that apps aren’t open and don’t seem to be on a path in that direction. Currently, apps feel like a stitch in time that is both wonderfully just and elegant in some respects and terribly broken and cruel in others.

App linking

Another pothole in our mobile path is app-to-app awareness. Most mobile apps don’t know if you have another app installed. In-app linking is a guess at best, so redundancy is created in apps instead of elegant hand-offs. Stop-gap solutions sometimes rely on the web as a handy but slow bridge to shuttle functionality and content. Have you ever been roughly thrust from one mobile app through the iTunes App store instead of landing directly on the image or video you hoped to see? Today’s announcement of AppLinks by Facebook is the first real step in this direction. I look forward to AppLinks becoming a prevailing standard.

Our hero, HTML5

The final hope was that HTML 5 apps would slash through the grip and seeming tyranny of native app directories hasn’t yet come to pass. It would be nice to create mobile experiences in pure HTML/CSS and web technologies but instead HTML 5 is has been bashed soundly and for some good reasons. Rather than an open web-like savior it seems to be relegated to playing the part of stop-gap interconnector. In fact, Instagram itself was reliant on HTML 5 for a good long time as it developed. Part of the blame for HTML 5's lack of success should be shared with the HTML 5 app directories that to my eyes have only differed from incumbent app stores in their lack of payment information. They also seem to uphold the same promotion, curation and arbitrary ordering of their mobile app sister directories while accepting apps that can barely be called bookmarks instead of serviceable apps.

The ability to access hardware elements like cameras & microphones from purpose built native apps has never been easier. Controlling cameras from web apps requires nascent frail elements of non-native browsers or other plug-in’s that can’t always be relied on. For HTML5 to work, we’ll need access to all of the native built-in goodies.

Needle in a haystack

How can the cream rise to the top when most apps can’t mathematically ever see the light of day if not promoted by Apple, Google or Amazon’s app stores? Apple recently claimed that their average customer now uses over 100 apps , their users have downloaded over 60 Billions apps and there are over 1,000,000 apps available in the Apple App Store.

While improved in the latest iOS updates, app discovery still needs work.

Plus a pony

As builders and users of mobile devices we want readily available, interconnected, easily developed, full-featured and discoverable mobile experiences. We’re looking at you Google, Apple and Amazon.