Mobile Web and Apps: Which is the Future?

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With the popularization of mobile Internet and smart platforms, applications (Apps) have also emerged, developed and grown as a specific form of use. People have gradually become accustomed to using smartphones and various applications for communication, social networking, shopping, payment, work, and games; the arrival of the Internet of Things has set off another wave of enthusiasm, and applications have entered the fields of smart homes, cars, and health monitoring. On the other hand, the arrival of HTML5 has greatly evolved the Web, so is there still a future for Web applications?

Challenges and opportunities facing Web applications

Haza?l-Massieux, the leader of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), was recently interviewed by Cnet at a mobile Web event and gave a forecast of the future development of Web applications. He said that the World Wide Web has indeed encountered some troubles under the erosion of Apple and Google's mobile platforms, the most important of which is the massive loss of developers. iOS and Android occupy almost 90% of the mobile smart platform market share and have high profit margins. It is natural for developers to focus on these two platforms. But on the other hand, the arrival of HTML5 makes the Web more futuristic, with significant improvements in performance and ease of use, which is an opportunity for Web applications.

Foreign media Readwrite also expressed support for this view. Previously, Web applications were mostly based on passive "Pull" experience, but now, well-known services such as Facebook and Flipboard have launched active "Push" Web pages, allowing users to conveniently use website services on any smart device without having to deliberately download applications. To some extent, Web applications can be a good supplement or even a substitute for applications.

Web applications still need to improve experience

Hazal-Massieux also said in the interview that from a technical perspective, Web applications still need to make breakthroughs. Last October, the World Wide Web Consortium released new component standards to improve the performance of Web applications, including improving responsiveness, streaming media priority, and emphasizing the implementation of new features such as video chat. The future goal of Web applications is to partially "appify", such as running in the background and providing offline push notifications.

Since Apple and Google have already launched mobile payment services, Haza?l-Massieux believes that this is also an opportunity for Web applications. Currently, Web applications can already call on mobile phone accelerometers and GPS, and 3D image acceleration for videos and games is also possible. The next step is to build Web payment applications through NFC and data services, which has broad prospects.

Of course, Apple and Google are more focused on the development of the application environment of their own platforms, and may no longer be enthusiastic about the mobile Web. Haza?l-Massieux and his World Wide Web Consortium still need to do a lot of work and face a difficult process to finally present the future prospects and advantages of Web applications to application developers and seek greater development.