The app graveyard- we all have one on our phone. It’s that third or fourth home screen tab that you almost never swipe to. Or maybe you hide your app graveyard inside a folder. It’s full of mobile apps you never use yet feel obligated to keep. Maybe it’s because you once used it a lot, or you’re a loyal customer to the brand, or maybe like most people you whisper to yourself “but I could use it” like that shirt with the tags still on it in your closet.
The death of mobile applications has been in the talks for years. Some claim the mobile application market is already cold, dead, and buried. Other’s think these claims are over exaggerated. What can’t be denied though is that whether or not it’s dead yet mobile apps certainly are not what they were?
Mobile App Usage
Stating that the mobile application market is dead is an exaggeration. People use apps every day and will continue to for a long time. People are spending more time on their phones and doing more while on them. Research supports the fact that demand for apps is at an all-time high. Around 89% of mobile media time is spent on apps.
But when people talk about the death of apps they don’t mean all apps. The big ones will survive the famine. Social media, messengers, games, and others will last. It’s the rest of them, the ones that aren’t owned and promoted by big companies like Android, Google, or Apple, that will, are and have perished.
App Growth
The number of mobile applications continues to explode. Both Apple Store and Google play marketplaces are booming- or rather, drowning. The chances of an app becoming successful have become nearly impossible. Less than 1% of mobile applications ever reaches the stage of financial sustainability or even breaks even. People hear about the death of mobile apps but they look at the continued growth of the market in shock. People are still out there developing them, but to what success?
Web-Based vs. Stand Alone Apps
The future likely isn’t going to be the stand-alone apps that litter your phone now. Web-based applications, or rather mobile optimized websites, will be the way mobile usage moves towards. The trend is already starting that way. Most people start mobile research on a search engine, not the individual branded app.
Having a website that is mobile friendly is more important than ever. Not only will it impact your site’s SEO ranking but it makes a huge difference to user experience. 61% of users won’t return to a mobile site if they had trouble with it. Looks, scroll time, text size, loading speed and other factors all impact how mobile-friendly search engines and users find your site.
Cause of Death
So what is causing the app market to die, or at the very least be slowly abandoned? The answer is simple- users and money. It’s expensive to make mobile applications, especially if a company wants to achieve usability on all devices (mobile and tablet) as well as all platforms (Apple, Android, and Google). With the chances of a high return or any return, getting smaller and smaller the risk and effort just aren’t worth it anymore.
But companies would make the effort and take the risk if customers were committed to apps. Users aren’t though. The reasons for it aren’t that hard to understand. It’s annoying and time-consuming to manage all these different apps. There are constant updates, the load time, and the effort it takes to switch between the different apps. Web-based apps are all located in one convenient places compared to the scattered screens and tabs of stand-alone apps.
Downloading, updating, using, and going to these mobile apps can be compared to signing up for an email list. Sure, it’s great when you get sent those coupons and updates. But how often do you really use them? Are the other constant emails from that brand worth it for that one $10 off code? The benefits of having multiple, individual applications for everything and every company don’t outweigh the downsides.
Conclusion
The lifeline that has been holding up mobile applications is already shifting towards web-based sites and apps, in North America at least. International markets such as China are still seeing a positive boom in mobile applications. It’s time to let them die here, though. They’re costly and not worth the effort, for both users and creators.
It’s time for all of us to let go and make peace with the death of mobile apps. They had a good life. It’s time for all of us to clear out the app graveyard that lingers on our phone. We won’t use them in the future, we aren’t using them now, and if we’re being honest we never used most of them anyway.
