Differences between mobile websites and native apps

Advances in mobile devices, their web browsers and the carrier data networks enables most information to be presented purely within the user’s web browser. Then why create a native application to promote a travel destination when on the surface a mobile web site is all that is required?

There are advantages and disadvantages with both mobile web sites and with native applications. Some organizations may only need a mobile web site; others may be better served by a native application, while others may need both.

Organizations that offer both a mobile website and native apps typically see 4-5 times more usage with the native apps over the mobile website.

These are some of the key considerations when deciding whether a mobile web site or a native application is right for your organization’s goals. Nomad’s platform approach allows immediate creation of a native application from exactly the same content if you decide to use a mobile web site today, but require a native application tomorrow.

1. Claim and control your message

A native application is significantly easier for a visitor to find on their device compared to a mobile site that is typically buried as a bookmark within their browser. This and the other native application advantages outlined in this section favor the visitor using a native application if it has comparable information to your mobile web site. A third party native application has the potential to steal your audience, presenting its message rather than yours.

Nomad’s solution is to make it trivial to have both the mobile web site and the native application, with each cross-promoting each other and your main web site. There is no extra maintenance effort as updates to one are immediately available to the other because exactly the same content is used to generate the native application and the mobile web site.

2. Richer user experience

A native application can contain highly interactive features that go well beyond what is possible with a web site. The native application has access to the whole library of user interface controls supported by the device that can be combined to produce unique and compelling user interfaces to engage the user. For example, Nomad’s category search function with its tight integration to the interactive maps enables the user to find points of interest using a combination of interest and proximity to the user’s present position.

3. Application speed


A native application has everything pre-installed on the device and is able to run as fast as the device allows creating a great user experience. A mobile web site has to interact with the web server through the data network and is inherently slower. Try it yourself – download one of our applications and see how it flies compared to a mobile web site viewed on the same device.

4. Cellular data coverage

A mobile web site by definition requires a cellular data network. Your area may not have full 3G/4G coverage in which case a mobile web site will have limited use to just those places that have 3G/4G service. A native application functions without a cellular network.

5. Richer more intuitive maps

A mobile web site that uses Google's online mapping services is restricted to five different icon types, or it must use a more dynamic but significantly slower method for building the map. The five distinct icon type restriction limits the type and amount of data that can be displayed on the map. A generic pin icon can be used, but this makes it difficult for the user to distinguish between the plotted points of interest.
The dynamic maps approach requires successive interactions with online services for each plotted point of interest to be rendered.

A native application is able to use the mapping library built into the device. This allows dynamic maps with virtually unlimited points of interest to be very quickly constructed and presented to the user with no lag introduced by interactions with online services. The native application also has finer control of how the user interacts with the map and its icons providing a richer context sensitive user experience.

A native application can use offline maps stored on the device. A Nomad application can use multiple zoomable offline maps allowing you to present different aspects of your area such as walking trail and bike paths, a historical perspective, or a stylized map of a downtown area. Nomad applications accurately place markers on whichever online or offline map is selected by the user.

6. Multimedia Content

The best travel applications use a lot of imagery, audio and video to communicate the essence and appeal of the destination – a picture paints a thousand words. A point of interest is more appealing when the user can visualize what it is like to be there.

In our experience, more than 95% of an application’s size is its images, and a typical destination application has 50-100+MB of multimedia content. A mobile web site solution is required to download the images each time a point of interest is opened; this forces an editorial decision to balance the number of images that “sell” the point of interest against the time needed to download them. A native application has the images stored locally allowing an almost instantaneous display of a large number of images and videos as the user opens a point of interest.

Video streamed through a cellular data network is susceptible to network speeds and the power and bandwidth available to the streaming servers. Each user streaming video impacts the streaming servers, while the native application plays its video from local storage with no impact on or from your servers.

7. Reliability

A native application is standalone - it does not need a cellular data network or external services to function. Once installed, it will always work regardless of where and when the user uses it. A mobile web site, on the other hand, is susceptible to slowness or service unavailability. While the data networks are generally reliable there are many network components that impact how your visitors perceive your mobile web site and consequently your destination.

Top