Website v app

Two days ago I read John Gruber’s interesting observation on how companies—if they wrongly believe they have to choose—often prefer to build a good app and let their website languish:

I suspect that my instinctive belief that a service company or utility should focus its customer service efforts on the web first, and native apps second, is every bit as outdated as my stubborn belief that invite ought not be used as a noun.

I agree on both counts. As he says elsewhere in his article, ‘If one of the two should suck, it should be the app that sucks and the website that works well. You shouldn’t be expected to carry around a bundle of software from your utility company in your pocket.’

Jeremy Keith appeared on my RSS shortly thereafter discussing Gruber’s article. He called it ‘a cultural problem with “modern front-end web development”’ and again I tend to agree. The cultural aspect is a combination of misread trends and some degree of self-fulfilling manoeuvres by corporations that make unusable websites and force people to use apps giving themselves the impression that people prefer apps.

A website is omnipresent, like components of an internet atmosphere, and you can reach out to one when you need it. An app is baggage and you need to lug it around even when you have little need for it. Every app that connects to the internet ultimately connects to a server from which a website can be served too, so there is little by way of overhead. Somewhere along the line corporations got the memo that apps are trendy, latched on to the trend, and never bother to check if things changed.

I log into my energy provider’s (thankfully excellent) website once in a while. I do not need them for the other 30 days of the month. And I have no idea if they even have an app. That is not a marketing failure but a compliment.