Where to Spend the Money: Apps or Website Development?

You want your customers to be able to look for you online, and you also want them to have a good experience locating you, finding information, and buying products. But when it comes to spending your money on website development or on a mobile app, what’s best? Is there a difference between what is best now and what will be better in the future?

Current Strategy

According to Jakob Nielsen, a principal of the Nielson Norman Group (NN/g), the best solution for the present time is to go with good mobile app development if you can afford it. Nielsen reasons that apps can be adapted to “target the specific limitations and abilities of each individual device much better than a website can while running inside a browser.” Because of a mobile device’s weaker abilities compared to a desktop computer, you need an app to address these weaknesses effectively. Apps also allow you to more easily collect payments from customers compared to the public Internet.

Future Strategy

Things change, however, as computers become more powerful. If, as Nielsen predicts, computers increase in power by 100 times, this doesn’t mean that mobile devices will use this new power the same way a desktop computer will. Mobile device makers will split this newfound power between “speed and other mobile priorities, especially battery lifetime.” In other words, you’ll get fantastically light, thin devices whose batteries seem to last forever; but with downloading time having been cut significantly, as well, a good mobile website will be more desirable than the expense of a mobile app. App development will have to deal with the higher number of platforms available, and this will drive the cost of app development much higher even than it is now. Forking platforms will continue to increase the number of mobile app strategies for which you will need to account. If you have a limited budget, it will be best to steer it toward creating an excellent mobile website experience.

What’s Best for Now?

Nielsen admits that the problem, though he has been right with previous predictions, is in the timing. At what point will online site development be a better pay-off than mobile apps? It took years longer than he expected for other strategy shifts, even though the support structure was already there. For now, an app is the best experience for your mobile customers, and if you have the money, you should put it into developing an app. Watch carefully for computing power to greatly increase in the future, where mobile device creators will begin making battery life and other conveniences more of a priority even as downloading speeds increase. You can then shift your strategy again to be at crest of the new wave, pouring your budget into website development at the right time.