Having just read the article, Web Apps vs iPhone Apps for Museum Content, by Ted Forbes, and previously looked at the posting on Museum Marketing, Mobile Friendly Museum Websites, and even written about the topic of mobile development, I have been inspired to blog a little more on the topic.
Ted does an excellent job of highlighting some of the pertinent points about the whole iPhone versus Web Application debate, but it is more than just a simple battle between two platforms. To me it is about content and how you present it to a varying audience, it is about the abstraction of that content. The reality is that many people are thinking more about the means of delivery than the actual content to be delivered?
Where have I seen this before? Well it was highlighted by my recent posts regarding HTML alternative content and the delivery of multiple versions of websites, where users don’t have flash or potentially JS enabled. Developing for an iPhone-only scenario unnecessarily shuts out interested parties and audience, for no good reason, other than poor development planning. iPhones might seem pretty ubiquitous these days, but it would be a BIG mistake to assume they have 100% market share amongst your audience.
Museums work on inter-operability and protocol all the time. They share databases, they share objects, they share information, and these follow channels. This kind of mix is a great starting point and highlights why closed platforms such as the iPhone are inhibitive.
Here are a bunch of different reasons why I think developing Web Apps for visitors is by are a superior model and strategy for museums in the long run:
- Maximum Accessibility & iPad Ready! – No stone unturned in ensuring that each and every visitor has full access to the same information. Saves the need to special case for devices and provides a breadth of service. The best thing about this is that you are now officially iPad ready if you have developed a web app. No ifs, buts or maybes about it.
- Seamless Development – The fact that you are simply developing another web service means that, as a development team, you don’t need to add any new dimensions. You can carry on developing within the structure of the existing web site.
- Development Costs – Because are developing for a platform which your existing development team are 90% familiar with you can ring fence and reduce the potential costs. iPhone development would be much more costly and less penetrative in terms of ROI.
- Open Source – There is so much prior art in the field of web apps the ability to get from 0-60 mph in no time is exceedingly easy. This helps with reduction fo dev time and costs. It also means that museums can more readily share their experiences and though their sites can share a common structure, they don’t need to all be the same.
- Flash-Content – You can use flash as desired. Sure it won’t work on iPhone etc, but you can easily take care of alternate content in these cases, as you would on any setup where you miss flash.
- Niche Sites & Testing Ideas - Due to the fact that rollout time and cost can be kept to a minimum, as well as the fact that barriers to entry are low, it is super easy to create new content for specific exhibitions or tie ups that a museum does. Testing ideas is also a lot easy before full roll out, which ties in nicely with Jim Richardson’s beta museum.
- iPhone Interface – Despite building a web app, you can still create a standard iPhone like interface to your web app, using whatever graphics and combining them with JS. Libraries are being built that will make this task a whole lot easier.
- Reliance on 3rd Party – Part of the issue I have with iPhone Apps is the reliance on the App Store, in the same way of rolling out an Air App you rely on getting a certificate for it. Developing a browser friendly web app cuts out this “unknown” from the equation. I suppose it is possible, being a cultural institution that the App Store might fast track your app approval, but this isn’t something one can expect, rely on, or anything else.
- API / Web Services – Any API structure you create to service your web app can easily be opened up and made public so that other people can do cool things with the data on their own web sites.
No doubt more will be added to this list as I think of them, but for now these obvious few will do, and perhaps you would like to add your comments below too!
Web-head & art collector, living in East London and huffing on the fumes of the planet since '78. Here are my thoughts.
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Ayo Apr 16, 2010
Vincent – great great post here. I’ve been blogging about this same set of issues on Juncanoo.tumblr.com and you’ve very eloquently addressed the main points here.
I’ve to ask – why must the choice be binary? While web apps do engender breadth, native applications have so much more potential for functionality for the end users, maintaining connections and relationships with visitors and the like.
What we’re doing at juncanoo is developing what will be a cheap way to publish apps (in the hundreds of dollars) for multiple platforms (iPhone ready now, Blackberry and android coming in may), and then make the same content available in a webapp for smartphones that lack a suitable app platform. This way, you get the best of both worlds. What do you think?
Try the app here: itms://itunes.apple.com/us/app/exhibit-by-juncanoo/id344358052?mt=8.
still in its infancy, but we’d love to hear what you think.
Ayo
Timo Pietilä Oct 16, 2010
Great article! I feel exactly the same way. Also, in mobile web you can bring social elements to the apps quite easily.
My company specialises in mobile web app guides for museum and the thing is that developing in web environment enables us to use 3rd party web service APIs to share comments, recommendations and other social features in Facebook, Twitter etc, which makes the mobile guide more into a mobile community that functions as social media marketing tool for the museums.
Vincent Roman Oct 26, 2010
Timo – thanks for the comment, and apologies for taking so long to get back to you (not my usual style). Clearly there is nothing that can’t be done without having to build apps. It’s back to the age old argument about whether to build entire sites in flash or not. I suppose the driver should the end goal and targets.