IT MAY just be a play of words, but it is important to know the difference between what and what.
A browser is different from a mobile app. We use a browser to navigate websites using an internet connection, but we use a mobile app to retrieve information using a cellular connection.
This is a bit confusing when we use a mobile device to navigate a website through an internet connection while using the same device to use a mobile app using a cellular connection. Most people would not know and would not care to know the difference, but the confusion starts when we use the same device to use a web app instead of a mobile app.
Technically, a web app is not a browser, but never mind that, because for all intents and purposes, a web app somehow functions like a browser too.
Technically as well, a mobile app is native to a device, whereas a browser is not. For all intents and purposes however, a web app is also native to a device.
To be able to know the difference between a mobile app and a web app however, we should understand that a mobile app can be used even without an internet connection, whereas a web app could only be used with an internet connection.
As I said, the difference between the two might not matter to most people, but I think that what is significant in this dichotomy is the fact that a mobile phone could now access information via the internet even without a browser. It is significant because this “act of independence” could possibly lead to the “death” of personal computers (PCs), a scenario that has already been predicted by some technology observers.
Surely but quietly, mobile phones have morphed into complex personal computing devices, from being simple personal communications devices. If you agree with this observation, then perhaps you would also agree that these personal communications devices could now practically function like PCs, albeit these are smaller and handier.
Even if these are smaller (and cheaper too), these handheld devices could practically do what PCs could do, except that these are now “independent” from browsers, and now, these handheld devices already have a life of their own with the advantage of having not only a web app as a browser substitute, but also having mobile apps in addition.
The only downside to this is the cost of data plans and the speed of internet connections, but these may no longer be problems in the near future.
As of now, there are already more than forty million smartphones out in the market. Even if not all of them would not have internet connections to be able to use web apps that is not a problem because they could still connect to cell sites in order to use mobile apps.
For sure, there are still more PCs out in the market than smartphones, but the numbers of smartphones are growing and may soon overtake the PCs in numbers. Take note also that not all PCs are connected to the internet. In reality however, the smartphones are not even competing with the PCs, because the bottom line here is that the users could access the content that they need at anytime from anywhere, using any device, desktop or handheld.
Since devices and connections are no longer the problems of most people, the only remaining problem so to speak is the content that they could access. Generally speaking, access to information is the default purpose of having devices and connections.
As it started out, the usefulness of devices and connections was limited to informational purposes, but moving fast forward, the usefulness has morphed to transactional purposes. It seems that the remaining question now is how to use devices and connections not only for the personal purposes of individual users, but also for the social purposes of broader communities in general.
With that in mind, I came up with a pneumonic device that would help us remember the transactional uses of web apps and mobile apps.
MINE is short for Medication, Information, Nutrition and Education. I included “Medication” because the use of telemedicine is growing in the mobile world. As a matter of fact, mobile medicine is a term that is now being used, in much the same way that mobile commerce is used.
“Information” needs no information, because this is still the most popular purpose in the mobile world.
I included “Nutrition” as a collective term to refer to both food and agriculture, because the trend has already started wherein consumers are using their mobile phones to shop for food that is not only cheaper, but is also better in terms of being healthier.
Last but not the least, there is a growing use of mobile devices for online learning, or I should say, mobile learning./PN
