> Yeah, and they are successful (mostly due to networking effects — all of the apps you’re mentioning have strong network effects) in spite of their app quality.
That seems to live up with what was said further up the thread:
> People will put up with a lot of garbage if your product fills a need. And non-native UI is not even inherently garbage, just sub-optimal (and even that depends on the product)
> They want to control the entire user experience end to end, and it is why many people like Apple products so much.
Totally. But in a messaging app context, that doesn't apply or even make sense. They could just release an iMessage app for Android and keep the experience exactly the same for their iPhone users.
What's wrong with Hangouts? I quite like having an all-in-one text message + internet message + phone and video call app that I can use from my phone and computer web browser seamlessly...
> I would prefer developers to spend more time implementing features, and less making bling-bling UI things.
So many apps twenty years ago had features that apps today do not. It was really frustrating to see instant messaging services regress in features as people migrated from one to another to a third to ... today's dumpster fires.
>Anything telling me to install an app whose mobile experience is fine already is very fishy to me.
Facebook is my #1 example of this.
The app bloated up like it's primary purpose was to take up space on your phone. So I removed it and used the mobile website.
At first you had to refresh the page to get new messages. No big deal, but a bit annoying.
Then they updated and didn't even need to refresh the page to get an update to the thread you were in.
Then a few years back they decided you can't get messages in the mobile website, you must use their app. Later I learned about mbasic.facebook.com and have to switch to that when friends message me.
>> This requires developers to build hundreds (thousands?) of versions of their app
What? No it doesn't. Which Android devs are building hundreds of versions of the same app? Who is this guy?
>> We know many software developers who insist on using an Android phone out of principal, but their green message bubbles stand out as exceptions
Oh right, someone who thinks America is the whole world. The green iMessage bubble and all the madness it leads to is a US specific problem. Nobody I know cares about iMessage at all.
>> Consumers, especially young consumers (aka customers of the future) prefer iOS by wide margins.
No they don't. Android dominates with 70% market share. Even in America iOS is only ~60% market share, which is not a "wide margin".
>> The result is that iOS users monetize for app developers much, much better than Android users
Yes because young people are famous for their abundance of spare cash. Eyeroll.
> Support for Android apps without needing to be redeveloped is a no-brainer in my opinion.
Have you looked at the Android Play Store lately? Its Facebook, Netflix, Twitter, the McDonalds app (#16 !?!?!) a few other social things, games ... and the rest is total crap.
Why take this ocean of garbage onto a new platform (and at the same time, alienate existing developers who now must compete with Android apps)?
If app popularity obeys power laws (0.005% of all apps make 60% of all app store revenue)[1], seems a better strategy is just to make sure you have the few essential apps necessary, and then provide great tools and encourage developers to write the rest.
> At present there is no motivation for developers to develop for Windows Phone
I've been developing for Android quite some time, and the economics of the platform are not appealing. There have been several articles saying the cost of Android app dev is between 20-30% (minimum) more expensive than iOS[2].
As Windows 10 adoption moves along, it will be more enticing to write a univeral app for that platform and mobile.
Some context: I've been doing iOS app development for over nine years now, both doing client work and selling my own apps (with some moderate success). Earlier this year I've started working on a desktop app targeting roughly the same audience as Invision and the myriad other mobile app prototyping tools. Things are slowly progressing, and though I firmly believe in the usefulness of the tool I have in mind (provided I can pull it off successfully), I'm starting to have second thoughts about the future of the mobile app space in general.
My biggest points of concern:
- People have mostly stopped downloading apps from the App Store (games non-withstanding). Discoverability issues, inconvenience of a download, and some app fatigue are among the contributing factors, in my opinion.
- While every business needs a website, far fewer businesses need an app, since it's much harder to make people [want to] install an app compared to visiting a website.
On the other hand, progressive apps look very promising in this regard, and I sincerely hope they take off on both Android and eventually iOS, with as much native capabilities available as possible. Frankly speaking, we need to get rid of the App Store as middleman, since it's a huge bottleneck.
Also, I don't know much about the state of enterprise-only apps - I presume they are faring better then consumer apps, though not sure to what extent.
Am I being too gloomy, and prospects are actually great for mobile in the next 5 years or so, or is it a dead-end in the mid-to-long term?
I would greatly appreciate your opinions and insights on the topic.
(edits: fixed a typo; added a small clarification)
I don't think releasing a messaging app that flops is bad? If getting a messaging app to succeed was easy then there would be more successes at it.
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