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I think we're really starting to see the saturation point with native apps, particularly on phones. I am so sick of having to install yet another mobile app, fo

I think we're really starting to see the saturation point with native apps, particularly on phones. I am so sick of having to install yet another mobile app, for something that basically shows me a bunch of text, pics, and like buttons. 90% of these shouldn't exist. There is a time and place for it, but I think there is going to be a shift to the web app with more OS integration stuff.

niftich 10y ago
This has been happening for a while. This 2012 article from Nielsen [1] wrote that while app downloads were up (in 2012), user time spend in all apps was flat. It also notes that the 4 of most popular apps were Facebook, YouTube, Google Search, and Gmail. This 2014 recap [2] of a comScore report notes that more than half of all smartphone users download 0 new apps a month -- this started the catchphrase that "the average user downloads 0 new apps a month", which has both been supported and challenged by additional analyses on old and new data every year since. Whether it's 0 or 1.5 [3] isn't the point -- the growth is measly. Aside from a select runaway hits, most of today's most used apps are the same as 4, 5 years ago. The app boom has been over for a long time. Occasionally, one can still strike it rich, but it's the exception, and not the norm. [1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2014/02/19/exclusive-inside-story-how-jan-koum-built-whatsapp-into-facebooks-new-19-billion-baby/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2014/02/19/exclusive-... [2] https://www.quora.com/How-was-WhatsApp-built https://www.quora.com/How-was-WhatsApp-built [3] https://www.tune.com/blog/no-the-average-american-does-not-download-0-apps-each-month/ https://www.tune.com/blog/no-the-average-american-does-not-d...
- overcast 10y ago
  Agreed! Thanks for the sources.
sidlls 10y ago
Aren't most of those "native" apps just webapps packaged standalone with some framework anyway?
- overcast 10y ago
  Just furthers my point.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  Not really, not the majority of the ones that people really care about and don't drain their battery. Even those that are, they can access the full spectrum of OS APIs, instead of a document model bended to be a VM.
flukus 10y ago
We've got the worst of both worlds a lot of the time. Tiny little apps that would be just fine as web pages, and web/electron apps that should be real apps.
tybit 10y ago
Hard to tell, Android Instant Apps and the like may solve those problems and keep native apps ahead of web apps.

niftich 10y ago

This has been happening for a while. This 2012 article from Nielsen [1] wrote that while app downloads were up (in 2012), user time spend in all apps was flat. It also notes that the 4 of most popular apps were Facebook, YouTube, Google Search, and Gmail. This 2014 recap [2] of a comScore report notes that more than half of all smartphone users download 0 new apps a month -- this started the catchphrase that "the average user downloads 0 new apps a month", which has both been supported and challenged by additional analyses on old and new data every year since. Whether it's 0 or 1.5 [3] isn't the point -- the growth is measly. Aside from a select runaway hits, most of today's most used apps are the same as 4, 5 years ago. The app boom has been over for a long time. Occasionally, one can still strike it rich, but it's the exception, and not the norm. [1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2014/02/19/exclusive-inside-story-how-jan-koum-built-whatsapp-into-facebooks-new-19-billion-baby/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2014/02/19/exclusive-... [2] https://www.quora.com/How-was-WhatsApp-built https://www.quora.com/How-was-WhatsApp-built [3] https://www.tune.com/blog/no-the-average-american-does-not-download-0-apps-each-month/ https://www.tune.com/blog/no-the-average-american-does-not-d...

overcast 10y ago
Agreed! Thanks for the sources.

sidlls 10y ago

Aren't most of those "native" apps just webapps packaged standalone with some framework anyway?

overcast 10y ago
Just furthers my point.
pjmlp 10y ago
Not really, not the majority of the ones that people really care about and don't drain their battery. Even those that are, they can access the full spectrum of OS APIs, instead of a document model bended to be a VM.

flukus 10y ago

We've got the worst of both worlds a lot of the time. Tiny little apps that would be just fine as web pages, and web/electron apps that should be real apps.

tybit 10y ago

Hard to tell, Android Instant Apps and the like may solve those problems and keep native apps ahead of web apps.