Keep iPhone Apps Real

Too often these day I go to a website that I’m very familiar with on my phone – an old friend if you will, in my daily browsing activities. Maybe this site can tell me the surf report, or the movie times, or just update me on how far in debt I really am!

Typically I navigate to these sites on my laptop but there are the exceptions, or rather the exceptional times when I want to tap in to these “vital” (as in part of my everyday life… so that list is pretty long) web applications, or digital products, from my iPhone. Thanks to the great browser functionality that Apple has given the iPhone, I of course am expecting the same, or at least a very similar experience, but alas this is not to be, and soon the excitement is gone. I have arrived at the app version of the website. (insert shriek of horror here)

I am greeted by an involuntary redirect to a “cool new mobile version” of the site, complete with big playful icons and large font sizes and full width shiny buttons which outline the 4 activities that the maker of this mobile versions thinks that I want to do, and nothing else.

So what’s my complaint this time? Well the title pretty much says it all. Don’t make a iPhone app if you are not willing to invest the relatively small amount of time necessary to MAKE an iPhone app. iPhone apps should provide a consolidated user experience, not a restricted one. Apps are intended to make your life easier and perform key functionalities, not to simply follow the crowd and announce “we have one too!”

Now there is a distinction that I would like to make here between web based and native iPhone apps. If you want to make an app for people to download from the iTunes store that basically does nothing and is just meant to look cool, by all means do so. I have seen many, and in fact some are kinda fun. But if you are redirecting me from accessing your website to an “optimized version”, only do so if the mobile version is going to improve my user experience and help me interact faster and more efficiently on the intended platform.

Now just to clarify, I am not picking iPhone bastardizations. I think that in general this applies to all mobile apps/mobile versions, whether palm, or Treo, or basic web accessible CDMA phone. Trust me, I get it, you have the limitations of a specific platform, but all web design projects have this. You still have the obligation to maximize the effectiveness and enjoyment of the user’s experience. Overcoming these limitations and obstacles is what we do as web designers, and we have an obligation to do it right.

So please, if you are making a new iPhone version of your website to make my life better, make sure that it is truly better than what I experience browsing your regular website zooming in and out of my tiny little iPhone Safari browser. Thank you!

Coming soon, the good the bad and the ugly, whose making iPhone apps that really make a difference.