A lot of very smart people today have been responding to Chris Anderson’s Wired article entitled, “The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet“, including the New York Times, GigaOm, and BoingBoing among other publications.
The response has mainly focused on how mobile apps (though no one is really saying “mobile” that’s what everyone means) are simply natural extensions of Web protocols, and that the Web and the Web browser still have a huge place on the Internet. Agreed.
However, the browser to mobile apps shift seems much more murky than what is really behind the popularity of mobile apps in the first place: multi-touch.
Either way, of course, we have Apple to thank for this shift. The iPhone and its OS (now iOS) not only brought on the age of the smartphone, but also fundamentally shifted the way we interact with the Internet. There are many reasons for developers to build mobile apps over building a website, but the core difference is multi-touch.
Maybe because both phenomenons happened at the same time, mobile apps have become synonymous with multi-touch, but that’s simply because of the architecture, not because it has to be that way. As such, right now mobile apps are built for us to use our fingers – websites, certainly not so much – they are built for using a mouse. But this will change.
Multi-touch operating systems (right now we really only have mobile operating systems, but fully functional multi-touch operating systems are coming) that incorporate multi-touch browsers that serve up websites designed for fingers, not little arrows, will soon (2013 maybe?) be the norm.
Yes, mouse-based operating systems and websites will hang around for awhile (as will keyboards) but computing is moving towards multi-touch and that means that the Web will move that way too. When it does, this browser versus app debate will most likely be forgotten as a new kind of OS and browser takes over computing, one where the mobile apps we have on smartphones and tablets today will act more like bookmarks do in current browsers, and were information is pushed to us at the speed we want it pushed (Anderson did get this part of the story completely correct, btw).
The Web isn’t dead – it’s just becoming a ten-fingered beast.
The web certainly is not dead. It is just beginning and people will soon realized its full potential, especially with mobile application where its not over smartphones but special all in one gadgets. We even haven’t seen video phone on its full potential.
A commenter on Twitter asked why “multi-touch” instead of just “touch” – well, the way I see it, multi-touch is a more advanced form of “touch” – we had touch screens before the iPhone, but it’s really the way that the iPhone brought in multi-touch that really changed things, but maybe I’m being too semantic… here’s the Wikipedia entry for “multi-touch” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-touch
You are right, mouse to multitouch and chipsets to System on a Chip are happening simultanously driving a paradigm shift towards mobility.
Nice idea, but I don’t think so…
The browser is a lousy experience compared to dedicated desktop applications, but it is popular due to ease of use and accessibility – you don’t have to download anything, and you can access it from any computer.
The mobile web is even lousier, but getting more popular due to even more accessibility – you can access it from *anywhere*; you don’t even have to be in front of a computer.
However, the usability of the mobile web is bad, and the shift to mobile apps and multi-touch is simply improved usability on tiny devices.
I’ve been a multi-touch user (iGesture from FingerWorks) on the desktop for years, and I can assure you that the keyboard and mouse combination is vastly superior for most tasks…however, that is not an alternative on mobile devices.
The web has always been a ten-fingered beast, but by using the keyboard. Mobile apps and multi-touch is just a poor substitution (but the best we’ve got) for the mouse-and-keyboard combination on the desktop …
Well, at least this is my 2 cents on the matter….
On mobile, we do different tasks and we do same (to desktop) tasks differently. As more and more mobile internet push happens, the web will adapt to the mobile.
Web will never die because of, as you said it succintly, accessibility.
Before I answer your points in detail, I have one question – have you used an iPad at length?
I don’t think you’re giving enough (or any, in fact) credit to Palm for training the business force on touchscreen Pilots with the pointer and then the Treo after.
You’re right, I didn’t give any credit to Palm.
I couldn’t agree more. And I would add that our interaction patterns are changing dramatically with touch and voice. Here’s an excerpt from something I wrote on the subject: http://expostfacto.posterous.com/voice-and-touch-are-making-our-computers-like
Touch interaction has gone from an expensive, fickle novelty to urbane commonality via mobile phones. Apple has shipped about 100M touch enabled devices. Samsung has shipped 50M phones. Android is predicted to ship 55M devices this year.
Voice control is now pedestrian. Gone are the days of frustratingly yelling at MacSpeak after hours of training only for the software to misunderstand. Google announced last week that 25% of searches on Android devices are voice queries – impressive for a feature that didn’t exist last year.
Voice and touch enable users, young and old, to interact with highly sophisticated technologies because they simplify our mode of interactions. We interact with our friends and family through touch and voice every day. After all, what could be more natural? And therefore what better way to interact with computers?