What the mobile app explosion has really showed us...the browser's days as the star of the Internet are numbered

Mobile applications, or "apps", are not new. They've been available, in various forms, for mobile phones since the 90's. I remember discussions about the "burgeoning" market for mobile phone software with my technical lead back in 1998. We both were very excited about the potential of this new platform.

In a former life, I was an avid fan of the Palm Treo. I remember installing several productivity applications on various occasions; Pocket Quicken to better track my finances, software that tracked both my workouts and caloric intake, specialized browsers, etc. Some of these apps were quite useful, others weren't. At the time apps were cool, but dealing with them was a pain, so browser based software ruled.

Then in the early 2000's, Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) hit the market promising, "The best of the desktop, meets the best of the web." It was now possible to develop desktop quality software that provided an optimal user experience, but was easily administered like a browser-based application; no installation disks, centrally managed updates, connected to the 'net using Internet protocols, etc. And, over the years, RIAs have made some traction on the desktop, but they've really taken off on mobile platforms...as apps.

According to the Silicon Alley Insider, few cellphone users access the mobile Internet. This is understandable due to the user experience that mobile devices provide as a software platform. Please don't misunderstand me, mobile devices are definitely getting better all-around, but the limited screen real estate makes it difficult to provide information to the user in an optimal fashion. Using a web browser makes it worse.

The same logic applies to software for tablet computers. As evidenced by the iPad, another mobile platform, tablets will access services on the network primarily using apps, not the web browser.

In my opinion, as mobile computing continues to proliferate and make the traditional desktop computer a highly specialized product, see my previous post, the web browser, commercialized by Marc Andreessen and Jim Clark of Netscape fame, will continue to be used for its initial intention, to browse information on the web. Yet, it is experiencing its last hoorah as a requirement to access interactive services on the Internet. There's an app for that.