OpenAppMkt Blog

When we first started working on OpenAppMkt, we faced a dilemma. We wanted to build a minimal viable product that couldn’t be too minimal, as we’re dogfooding the very platform we’re trying to evangelize. As DownloadSquad.com aptly puts it, OpenAppMkt is ‘an iOS web app for iOS web apps’.

Developers would use our implementation to evaluate the capabilities of Web/HTML5. It would be a great disservice if they wrongly attributed our lack of completeness to shortcomings on HTML5.

In the end, the minimal approach we took was to focus on a single platform. Even though the web is supposed to be cross-platform by nature, there are areas that had to be accounted for separately. One was testing, since every browser has quirks. The other was more particular to OpenAppMkt. We had to ensure the experience of ‘installing’ a webapp didn’t deviate too much from what users were already used to on their respective devices. So, we focused on just the iPhone, and we would use it to gauge developer/user interest in HTML5 as a platform to deliver/consume apps.

A few months have passed since we launched, and the early signs are encouraging. Over a thousand apps have been submitted and the install count is in the hundreds of thousands. Developers wanted to develop on the web and users didn’t care if apps were native or web. At the same time, we were also seeing requests from Android and iPad users. It was time to move beyond the single platform.

And so we did. We’re happy to announce that OpenAppMkt now supports Android and iPad devices. The installation process for all platforms is the same. Just visit
http://OpenAppMkt.com
from your device and it’ll take you the rest of the way. For users, the app discovery and installation experience on Android and iPad should hopefully be intuitive and familiar. For developers, their webapps can now be consistently distributed on a lot more devices than before.

A few months ago, Wired magazine ran an obituary of the Web on their blood orange cover. It’s bold, controversial and is arguably based on flawed data.

Nonetheless, the article highlights the trend that users are increasingly consuming services via native apps, rather than via the browser. Instead of (or in addition to) browsing, people are downloading & installing. For better or worse, hundreds of millions of users have taken on this behavior.

On the other side of the equation, developers face a behavioral change of their own. They now have to operate in environments that are controlled end-to-end by platform providers. This means new languages, non-agile cycles, bureaucracies, and everything you love/hate about compiled software. Worse of all, there are more than one of these platforms: iOS, Android, Blackberry, Meego/Symbian, WebOS, Windows 7, BREW and Samsung Bada.

Platform providers call it Differentiation. MBAs call it Fragmentation. Developers call it WTF.

If this reminds you of the old PC era, then your memory serves you half-right. Back then, there was effectively one platform called Windows, so no cross-platform issues. You’re also free to innovate on Windows, so no bureaucracies. Things weren’t as bad. But somehow, when this newfangled thing called the Web came along, software started migrating to the web in droves. Clearly, the web has more to offer than just an open and cross-platform environment. Well, as we all came to appreciate, the web is also inherently easy, accessible, updated, collaborative, mashable, shared, loosely-coupled, and of course, social. These qualities are hard to achieve on platforms that are proprietary, closed, autocratic and supportive of only compiled software that are statically coupled to them.

If developers took to the web in the PC era, where disparate platforms and freedom of expression weren’t issues, it should even be more brain-dead to do so today. Mobile browsers have largely standardized on WebKit, which means HTML5/CSS3 is ready, able and consistent on disparate platforms.  So then, why isn’t anything interesting happening on the mobile web?

Well, Rome wasn’t built in a day. The new ‘touch web’ ecosystem is still in its infancy and lacks tools and services that help developers flourish and thrive. We need the equivalent of everything that iOS provides and more. We need tools and services built to address idiosyncracies in the new app-centric world. The market is certainly aware of it, and we’re starting to see companies, projects and initiatives sprout up to take on the task.

At the end of the day, user behavior shouldn’t have to change between native and web apps. The browser does not necessarily have to be front-and-center in the user experience. It could just be a behind-the-scenes virtual machine, transparently powering apps on multiple device platforms today and any new ones in the future. Like I said earlier, it’s still early, but things are evolving rapidly. It won’t be too long before we see the first iFart app on the web.

The Web is far from dead. The Web remains the most widely adopted, accessible, open and powerful platform ever created.