Do You Need a Mobile App, or Just a Better Website?

The request arrives fully formed: we need an app. Sometimes that is right. Often what is wanted is a site that works properly on a phone, and the app is what someone assumed that meant.

Three questions that settle it

Does it need the device — camera, GPS in the background, offline work, a scanner, push notifications people will genuinely act on? Will the same person open it more than once a week? Is there a reason for it to live on the home screen rather than a bookmark? Two yes answers and an app makes sense. One, and it usually does not.

• A field team recording work with no signal — app
• A customer checking an order twice a year — website
• A driver scanning deliveries all day — app
• A catalogue people find through search — website

The real cost is after launch

Building is the smaller half. Two app stores review your updates, both platforms change their rules every year, devices and operating systems age out, and a version your customers refuse to update sits in the wild for a long time. A website updates when you deploy it, for everyone, at once.

An app nobody installs is worse than no app: it is a support burden with a one-star review attached.

The middle path is usually right

Start with a web application built properly for a phone — fast, installable to the home screen, working on a weak connection. If usage proves the case for the device features, build the app with real numbers behind it rather than an assumption.

The companies that get this wrong spend a year of budget on an app that does what their website already did, and then have to keep paying for it.