A surprising number of businesses with mobile Web sites live by the mantra, "If you build it, they will come." Why bother building mobile apps, the thinking goes, if you've got a mobile Web site? Mobile users browse the Web, and so they'll find your site. Why bother to spend the money and time to build mobile apps as well? Mobile app development can be costly; and with the growing number of mobile platforms out there, application development costs can easily skyrocket if you try to deploy native apps to every platform. Skipping a mobile application altogether and deploying a mobile Web site sounds like a better solution. When it comes to mobile, that mantra is wrong. In fact, here's something you can count on: If you only build a mobile Web site and don't also build mobile apps, users won't find it.
Should you build mobile apps? What the surveys say
The mobile analytics firm Flurry released a report in April found that when it comes to mobile data use, American consumers spend, on average, 86 percent of their time on apps and only 14 percent of their time on the Web. In raw numbers, that's 2 hrs and 19 minutes per day with apps, and 22 minutes on the Web. The report concludes, "The data tells a clear story that apps, which were considered a mere fad a few years ago, are completely dominating mobile, and the browser has become a single application swimming in a sea of apps." The analytics firm comScore found similar results in its Mobile Apps Report, in which it reports that "Apps drive the vast majority of media consumption activity on mobile devices, accounting for approximately 7 out of every 8 minutes." And BI Intelligence reports that the time people spend using mobile apps has jumped an astonishing 50 percent compared to a year ago, while mobile Web usage increased only 17 percent.Choosing the right tools for building your company's mobile app
So it's clear that if you're only building a mobile Web site, you will likely get left behind if you're looking for visibility. But that doesn't mean that you need to build mobile apps from scratch. If you use the right app maker, you can leverage what you've done for your mobile Web site and build an app straight from it. With this way of working, you can build and deploy both together, saving yourself a tremendous amount of time, effort, and money. To do that, you need the right development tools. We've built Alpha Anywhere to do that, so if you're looking to build mobile apps quickly, give it a try.
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