If you do any browsing using a mobile device, you will notice that everyone would really prefer you use their app rather than their mobile website. They position this as the quick, easy, and convenient way to get to whatever they’re doing. I have had enough of it and I would like to declare to everyone doing this that your website is fine.
The worst offender in this case is the ubiquitous Facebook, which has split their service into two separate apps – Facebook and Messenger. I recently deleted the Facebook app because it crashed every ten minutes, whether I was using it or not, so I decided to just get rid of it.
The Messenger app, at least, makes a little bit more sense, as it can function as instant messaging as well. Except it hasn’t been particularly well programmed either. For example, earlier today someone sent me someone else’s Facebook profile through messenger, so I could contact them. Except when I tried to send them a message by clicking a link in their profile, it got very confused and directed me to download the application I was already using. This feels like a flaw.
There are naturally places that can justify having a separate app. Take, for example, banking. They can build in added security so you can do more involved banking on a mobile device. If you can do something which isn’t possible to do on the website itself, that’s good.
For the most part, I have a suspicion of why these places are trying to push people towards their app, and it’s not a better user experience or letting people do more things. No, it’s to get more user attention. Just working on a website doesn’t let them pester you with notifications, and that’s the real reason behind the app.
Let’s go back to Facebook. Before it spent most of its time crashing, it didn’t do much that the website didn’t. Uploading pictures was smoother, but only because their website was deliberately bad at this. No, the big difference between it and the main website was that the app had a lot more notifications, which is nice for Facebook, since they can draw your eyes more easily. It’s bad for the user, because these notifications are wasting your time. People typically check their phones under the assumption that something important might be happening when it tries to get your attention. It’s frustrating when, instead of something important, it’s just some app trying to get you to look at it.
It has led to a mobile landscape that is inefficient and irritating, along with app stores that are filled with unnecessary garbage.
We don’t need all of these apps, we don’t need all of these notifications, and it’s time we stop caving in and installing all of it.
