Remember when you ran applications, real live apps, on your desktop? How quaint, right? Most of us probably live on the Web these days and if we run a primary desktop application, it’s email. Sure, folks run Office or specialty apps for the work they do. But most of us do things every day through the Web browser — shop, book travel, talk to friends, etc. etc. — that make up the bulk of our time in front of a computer.
So while mobile apps may seem like they’ll be here forever — shoot, there’s a 100,000 apps in the Apple store alone, another 25k in the Android store and new app stores opening every day — chances are our smart phone interactions may very well move back into the browser as well.
Doubt it? We submit as evidence today the launch today of Google Voice on the iPhone — not as a mobile app (because Apple won’t approve it) but via the mobile browser. What other site recently moved strongly to a new browser-based implementation? YouTube — owned by, yep, Google. So what’s going on here?
First, you have an issue of standards. Both the Google Voice mobile browser application and its “experiment” to move away from using Adobe Flash to run YouTube videos come down to one thing: the ability of the latest version of HTML — HTML5 — to enable developers to build standards-based Web applications that look and feel like native apps. Standards are always a good thing, and we can all applaud Google for pushing the envelope with the next-generation of Web standards.
But standards, especially on the Web (and let’s be frank, in telecom too) are used more often as a competitive weapon than one would like to admit. Microsoft made it’s way on the Web by “embracing and extending” Web standards whenever it was competitively convenient, for instance (killing Web pioneer Netscape in the process).
The move to HTML5 by Google holds similar competitive advantage. What’s the best way for Google to break Apple’s hegemony over the world of mobile apps — in the process opening up broad new vistas for delivering Google ads? Put an end to the specialized mobile application (be in from Apple or Palm or Nokia or Blackberry or whomever) and drive mobile apps back to where they belong (or at least where Google made its original Web billions) — into the mobile browser.
That way every user, regardless of device or operating system — and as long as they’re running an HTML5-capable mobile browser — can interact with content and run apps on a common platform, one that Google can target universally with the holy grail of uber-customized and -localized advertising.
Already, Google has built very slick versions of its core Gmail and Google Reader apps for mobile browsers, apps that when you’re using them look and feel like a so-called “mobile app.” And indeed they are, they’re just written for the Web browser.
At least for now, mobile browser apps like Google Voice for the iPhone have some important limitations. They can’t access the iPhone dialer or other native APIs, so they aren’t as deeply integrated into the user experience as a native iPhone mobile app. But there’s always ways around such things — don’t expect a few API workarounds to stop Google.
There’s a ton at stake in the war of mobile apps vs. HTML:5 — it’s a battle worth watching closely over the next year.
What do you think? Will mobile apps stay native — or will they go universal via the mobile browser? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
Meanwhile check out Google Voice on the iPhone in action:
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