Why I do not need apps (I think)

Try to be brief. Furthermore, as a disclaimer go while as an invitation to participate in comments that I'm not 100% sure but I think not, I do not need (many) apps. In general, I do not need different applications on my smartphone and other devices to access and use content or services that could be used perfectly in a browser.

Wired said a year ago and a half that the web is dead and December 2011 data show this trend , we spend 30% more time using web apps. Well, the internet breaks apps using. It becomes a microcosm in which depending on the access device (or at least, the developer of the operating system) will have access to content or another and will be subject to the considerations, advantages and disadvantages of the policy of that company. My questions are simple: Why? and for what? I have read a lot and I still do not have clear answers.

HTML 5 vs. Apps

If we think of apps, the first thing that comes to mind is the ease of use, versatility, multimedia content management. However, a major percentage of what, say IOS5 (Apple's operating system) allows you to do, you can also develop through HTML5, a qualitative and conceptual which lets you embed multimedia content directly, give semantics to content handled and make life easier for search engines, among other things. To get an idea, we can see the media gallery HTML5rocks Google.

In most cases the end result of an app is no different from what we could achieve with a mobile web version To the extent that there are systems like that automate WizziApp Weever or work. I think the few differences between the mobile version of Twitter and its App for iPhone, versions of magazines, radio players ... and yet, for development, validation and distribution we have to fold to a series of requirements of each one of the owners of operating systems, including that any link out of an app without the approval of the owner of the system. Therein lies the issue, the proliferation of apps that do not add too much about web versions.

And in exchange for what?

What a greater mass of users? What a very polished distribution channels? I have not clear. I can think of, of course, cases where the use of apps has all the sense in the world when using the accelerometer of a mobile device or your GPS, or camera, or as I said George Milling , when needs processing resources are high for a Web service. In such cases, the apps are a great opportunity, but not most. There are also cases where our website is so complex or intractable for the technology that was in its day, it seems faster to develop from scratch a simple app to offer any services. But little more.

In the end, my thinking is that we are witnessing the beginning of the post-PC, that the battle is fought in the cloud and has very high implications in online business models we know and it affects also to the experiences of use. All involved are looking for their piece of the pie as both mobile websites (I still call much attention to issues such as Web Stores seeking to recover the browser and operating system) and that if fragmentation continues in the coming years will a very different Internet we know. For better and for worse.