As a smartphone user, you probably have a wide variety of apps literally at your fingertips. You might deposit your checks with your bank app, order your lunch at your fave café with their handy app and update your status on your Facebook app.
Apps are proliferating so quickly, it’s possible that they may eventually take over websites as the most important business tool. When you think about it, this is pretty incredible — after all, for years, it was unthinkable that a company owner would not have a website. Now, it seems just as unlikely that they do not have an app. Here are some of the reasons why apps will eventually replace websites:
Mobile Device Friendliness is Key
In order for people to access and use a website on their mini powerful computer known as a smartphone, those websites must be mobile-friendly. As most business owners know quite well, this is not always easy to do; they must constantly pay for and implement new technology. On the other hand, apps are inherently mobile friendly, are exceptionally easy to use and are extremely specific in what they can help people to accomplish on their phones. These points all support the notion that businesses would be better off putting their mobile business eggs in the app basket.
Having Apps Does Not Always Mean Using Apps
Yes, there is an app for pretty much everything. This does not mean that people will actually use the apps that they download, or that their fave apps are for a local business. As Biznology notes, people tend to use 7-10 apps on their smartphones — and this group will likely include Facebook, Twitter, email, Candy Crush and others. This means that in order to possibly replace a website, a business app must be so user-friendly and innovative that it will gain a spot in the competitive world of app real estate.
In addition, since phones can only download a finite number of apps, business owners with amazing apps might lose out simply because customers don’t have room for their app on their phone. One way around this issue is to use a cellular modem with Gigabit LTE capability, which will allow app-happy shoppers to access on-demand apps 24/7 via the cloud. Qualcomm offers Snapdragon cellular modems with this innovative technology; they are designed to provide smartphones with fast, efficient and reliable connections to mobile networks. With an average LTE download speed that is as much as seven times faster than a home Wi-Fi, the Gigabit LTE technology from Qualcomm will allow you to access your connected apps at home or on the go.
Searching on a Browser Can Still Be Easier
As Beta Breakers notes, there are still plenty of times when opening up Google and searching for what you need on a number of websites is easier. Right now, there are over 800 billion websites waiting on browsers for you to find them — and not all of them have a complementary app. While browsers like Bing and Google are looking into ways to index apps so that they appear when searching for something, it would still require you to download the app and use it, as opposed to clicking on a URL and going right to a website.
While apps are plentiful and can be incredibly user-friendly, they don’t seem quite ready to take over the website world — at least not yet. Business owners who want to reach as many customers as possible should probably focus on providing a mobile and user-friendly website as well as an easy to use app; this way they can cover all of their customer bases and entice people to shop on whatever platform they prefer.
Founder Dinis Guarda
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