I will never tell you that you need an app if you don’t really need one. If it can be done with a simple website or web app that adapts to any screen, we can do it that way. If people will mainly use your product on their phones, a real app is still way better for that.
What the three words mean
A website is a set of pages you open in a browser, the program you use to go on the internet, such as Safari or Chrome. It explains what you do and brings people to you. Visitors mostly read, and they can fill in a form, for example. Tradi, a site I am building now for a menswear agency, is one of these: store owners will be able to see the collections and plan a showroom visit.
A web app also runs in the browser, and you work in it. You log in, you fill things in and the software remembers them. Think of the tool your team works in all day, or the portal your customers log in to. There is nothing to install. Felix is a web app like that: it is built to connect to a boutique’s till and tell the owner who to contact today. A web app that adapts to any screen is called responsive. On a laptop the parts sit side by side, and on a phone they stack.
A real app, also called a native app, is something you install on your phone, usually through Apple’s App Store or Google Play. It is made for that device. WTN App was one of these, for iPhone and Android: drivers could take a load and sign for it with no signal at all.
What a browser can do on a phone
If you need things from the phone itself, like the camera, location or notifications, a real app is your best choice. A browser can do part of that. With your permission, a web page can use the camera, ask for your location and send notifications, but not as far as an app can.
Taking a photo and sending it, or showing the nearest shop, works fine in a browser. Tracking a trip while the phone is in your pocket doesn’t. The browser only knows your location while the page is open, whereas an app can follow it in the background if you allow that.
Notifications on an iPhone are another example. A web app can only send them there once someone has added it to their home screen, and that is a step you have to explain to people. Apple and Google change rules like these regularly, so check what applies today for the feature you need.
Why an app is better when people are mainly on their phones
Even without camera or location, an app can be the better choice. It sits on the home screen with its own icon and opens without an address bar, so people get there faster. Swiping, scrolling and buttons behave the way people expect from their phone. An app can store data on the device, so it stays usable where there is no signal. Notifications work as soon as someone allows them, and people can find you by searching the app store.
A web app can imitate part of that. Do you need the app store? explains how far that goes. For something people open on their phone every day, an app remains the most pleasant to use.
It also brings more work. An app has to run on iPhone and Android, every new version goes through Apple’s and Google’s review, and you see that in the price. That is another reason to check first whether a responsive web app is enough.
How to choose
Look at who uses it, where that person is at the time and what they have to do.
A hairdresser who wants to show what she does and where she is needs a website, perhaps with a form to request an appointment.
Say an installation company wants to get its planning out of Excel. The office works in it on a large screen, and the technician looks up where to go now and then on the road. That is work for a responsive web app.
A courier company whose drivers scan and get signatures for parcels all day, including in basements with no signal, is better off with a real app. Those people are mainly on their phones and use the camera constantly.
You don’t have to stick to one form either. SF Sales Solutions, which I am working on now, gets a careers site and also an admin app for the founder’s phone.
If you are still in doubt
You don’t have to know this yourself before you talk to someone. Say what you need and how people will use it, and the form follows from that.
You can also go in steps. If you start with a responsive web app and it turns out later that people are mainly on their phones, an app can be added. You can then reuse most of the part on the server, which holds your product’s data and rules, while the screens usually get built again.
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