Another Mobileish Prediction
Time for another1 (mobile-ish) prediction… Google has stated that mobile application stores are just a passing fad, and the future lies in browser-based applications even on mobile devices. This attitude would certainly explain their lackluster approach to fixing Android Market and overall Android ecosystem issues, as well as the downright schizophrenia with Android vs. Chrome OS. I think they are 80% or more right, but I think it is going to take longer than they’d like and there will still be a sizable minority that will want and need native applications.
I think the current situation on the desktop is a good indication of how things will play out for the mobile space. Most new applications are released on the web. With advances in web standards, JavaScript and overall browser performance, I think even 3D gaming will eventually move into browsers.
As far as timing goes, I don’t think anything will really change in the next two years for mobile applications. Most apps will be native. But in about 5-6 years I’d expect most of the applications that are currently available in desktop browsers will be in equal positions on mobile devices. Things like email, calendaring, word processing and the like. As for 3D gaming, I think it will be around 10 years in the future before we’ll see that in mobile browsers (it isn’t really available in desktop browsers either, yet).
Another trend I see is that most web applications will offer a free version and get revenue through ads or some other means. However, I don’t think that is a reason to abandon mobile markets today.
So to summarize: eventually most applications will be browser based even on mobile devices. However, there are still several years where native applications make much more sense in just about every possible application category. It seems to me it would be worthwhile to invest moderately into mobile application stores to make them easy to use. And even after mobile browser applications have taken over majority of the market, there will be people who will want native for one reason or another. Given the huge number of mobile users, that number of people will remain a sizable market (as in, one percentage point equaling around 30 million devices by a rough estimate).
1 It seems my prediction is on the mark except for the CPU speeds, which I had the most doubts about. It seems like we’ll be lucky to pass 1.5 GHz by the end of 2012 at the current rate in mobile phone CPU speeds.
