In my last post, I argued that web apps have no future on mobile devices. But what about the PC? Didn’t the adoption of web apps make some good progress in the last few years?

Let me make my point by continuing the Gmail example from that post. Most of my email accounts run on Gmail. However, I rarely use the Gmail web app. Instead, I use the best Gmail app that currently exists on the PC—Outlook 2010. I could now start comparing Outlook to the Gmail web app, but honestly this doesn’t really make sense. Compared to Outlook, the Gmail web app is a child’s toy. I could as well compare a space shuttle to a handcart. Just like the Gmail app for Android is perfectly adapted for mobile phones, is the Gmail app for Windows (Outlook 2010) by far the best choice on the PC.

One of the main reasons why many believed (or hoped) that web apps have a future is because they are platform independent. But as it turns out now, it is their greatest disadvantage. It makes them very inflexible and look Spartan and ugly compared to their feature-rich, well-adapted, platform-dependent app counterparts.

It is interesting to note that the loudest advocates for platform independence have become quite silent lately. Isn’t it strange that the computer industry appears to make the same mistakes again in the phone and tablet market as they did decades ago in the PC market? Why not create one platform for all smartphones? The answer is simple. Nobody really needs platform independence.

Arguing for platform independence was popular mostly for ideological reasons. As long as one company dominated the operating system market, you could get a lot of applause for accusing Microsoft for being too successful (establishing the Windows monopoly with unfair business practices, as they put it). But now, with so many different platforms, the advantages of proprietary platforms become obvious.

The fact that software vendors have to develop their applications for different platforms gives them a big advantage. Sounds like a contradiction? Not really. Let me give you another example. The first mobile phone app I bought was a dictionary. I was running it on a Windows Mobile phone a few years ago. I recently bought the same dictionary again from the same vendor for my Android phone. If we just had one mobile phone platform, I probably wouldn’t have bought an update because the old app already had all the features I needed.

So is platform dependence bad for customers? Not at all! I haven’t used a smartphone for more than a year, mostly because I didn’t have time to decide which one I should buy. But when I got an Android phone recently, I was really surprised how quickly this market has evolved. This fast progress is only possible for one reason: competition.

It is only because quite a few different platforms now compete in a huge market that we can enjoy this amazing progress. For this I am certainly willing to spend a few extra dollars and buy some apps again when I switch the platform.

In my next post, I will summarize a few more arguments why I don’t believe in the future of web apps.