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Mobile Apps vs Mobile Web

mjschmidt

mjschmidt

Android Expert
Recently I logged into GMail with my browser instead of the GMail app, and discovered what I've read before elsewhere... that the GMail mobile web page seems cooler and better, than the app.

So, I've been thinking... which is better? Is either better? Can they both be equally good?

Either way, it occurred to me, it's interesting that all the Android blogs fall all over themselves almost weekly to come out with various "Best X Android Apps" articles, but I don't think I've seen any articles about the best mobile web pages for Android (or any smart phone for that matter).

I understand the money is to be made in apps, and that not much can (yet) be done with the web that you can do with an app (until we have workable Flash?) but surely there must be some great mobile sites out there that are better than, or equal to, apps?

I'm appealing to all of you then to make your suggestions for Best or at least good mobile web pages to use on our Android phones. I'll be looking around myself, and will possibly turn the results into a blog post of my own.

Here are a couple of starters that seem to be better than the app versions:

- Gmail: nicer interface, quick access to GTalk and Buzz as well as Calender, etc.

- Evernote: www.evernote.com/m Evernote has a really good mobile web site in case you don't want to download the app.
 
some are better than others. m.facebook.com has qualities about it better than the app, also has worse.

Gmail for instance, I have 3 accounts I have to deal with, and a widget for each, red,blue,green and they notify me whenever I get a mail with a number on the exact account.... m.gmail won't do that. I can delete, organize, reply to any email in any account. However, I find, when I need to initiate an email, it's best to just go to the mobile website, so I have it bookmarked.
 
web app usually caches the content. E.G. gmail and facebook. Say you are in a sub-way with no phone signal, you can still browse your facebook content (to somewhat) and read up to 3-5 days of downloaded gmail email.
 
This is interesting...

I find myself going to the facebook site instead of the app.

I think something else that will help mobile websites is when there's deeper integration with other parts of the phones, like the camera/gps/etc
 
Another thing. If you are in a data inhibited area (in other words, the signal sucks), you will probably have a problem gaining access to your "cloud" based applications/data.
 
I've read that Youtube's mobile page has recently had some major improvements but haven't checked it out myself. It's allegedly better than the app but that really wouldn't take much...
 
After the new Yahoo apps were announced, and I discovered I couldn't use them because I'm stuck on 1.5 (Rogers in Canada) i took another look at the yahoo mobile email site. Wow! They made some changes. It's pretty nice now. I can even use it to check all my other email accounts (I still use Gmail for Gmail though)
 
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