Web apps vs mobile apps

Alan Bavosa at Appdome argues that in the battle between web apps and mobile apps, the battle has already been won

Whether you’re at your home, at work or on the move and you need information on the spot, or you need to get something done - does anybody reach for a website or web app anymore? When you’re after the news on-the-go, you’ll look at your smartphone. Checking the weather – you don’t need to search further than your smartphone.

Almost twice as many people read their emails on mobile apps than they do on desktops. And this trend is only set to continue, with younger users increasingly likely to use mobile apps over web apps. 

Long gone are the days when mobile was playing catch-up to web. Somewhere around 2017 or so, mobile overtook web for the first time, and has never looked back. Mobile continues to cement its place as the dominant channel that consumers use to work, shop, socialize, chat, travel, get healthcare and everything else you can think of.   

Why mobile apps won

Competition in the app market is increasingly fierce. British consumers download and use more mobile apps than the global average; and usage exploded over the 2021-2022 period, with COVID-19 putting the final nail in the coffin for web apps.

Suddenly, the world was compelled to stay indoors. In terms of working, there needed to be flexibility; at the same time, people also needed community – and already, mobile apps were supplying both. Businesses could ensure that their employees were staying online and had the tools to get their work done remotely, while outside of that, people were keeping connected with messaging and video calls.

For those still using web apps, the increased, prolonged use made many switch over to the more convenient, agile mobile apps, and now that COVID is mostly behind us, the mobile-first world has never looked back. 

Keeping users safe

However, this growth has, and will continue to come with the responsibility of keeping users’ data safe; a concern that is front of mind for British consumers. In fact, according to Appdome’s Global Consumer Survey, new features, that would increase an app’s convenience or functionality, are edged into second place behind security as their top priority. And this expectation of security only grows as apps become more popular.

Consumers are also increasingly tech-savvy, which also leads to growing concerns over the security of the tech they use. For example, in the UK, banking apps are now the most used type of mobile app, because people enjoy how convenient they make managing finances.

But these apps, alongside trading and investment apps, are also expected to have the highest security according to mobile consumers. Once upon a time, people’s money was stored in banks, behind huge, metal vault doors – today that same kind of security is expected, just in a digital form.  

Mobile digital wallets are also an excellent example of where convenience meets with new and increased security concerns. Today, over 2.8 billion digital wallets are in use around the world. Their popularity is rooted in the simple functionality they offer; consumers can tap in on the tube or pay for their groceries with the click of a button.

But people will only feel comfortable using these apps for as long as they believe that their finances, personal data, and overall experience are protected. And according to almost 50% of consumers surveyed, they believe that it’s the developer or brand’s responsibility to protect them when using mobile apps.  

Providing the right security

With apps now so pervasive in our day-to-day lives, there is a common misconception that they are automatically safe. And while official app stores may attempt to put guardrails around the users’ personal data, the cat is too far out of the bag. 

This is concerning for several reasons not least the fact that the vast majority of users will abandon an app on discovering it doesn’t fully protect them, meaning businesses will lose out if their security doesn’t meet their customers’ increasingly high expectations for mobile app security. 

The number one fear for British mobile app users is fraud: which includes fake apps, fake events, as well as bad actors using their identity and data to make transactions or create fake accounts and credit in their name. So, to ensure their users feel secure using their apps, developers must ensure they build comprehensive mobile app security, as well as protection against fraud, malware and malicious bots.  

App makers have some big gaps to fill in terms of mobile app security, given the adversary is just getting stronger, faster, more automated and more sophisticated in their attack methods. Network-level protections and client-side compliance features like data encryption are no longer sufficient for the sheer number of mobile devices, threats, and malicious tools out there.

But there are already several avenues for apps to pursue in terms of improving and automating their mobile app security. By monitoring mobile threats and attacks in real-time, developers can learn what kind of threats their apps are facing for all apps in production.

They can then consistently release new security, anti-fraud, and anti-malware features with each release – using newer automation platforms that enable developers to build, test, release and monitor mobile app protections using no-code Cyber Defense Automation platform from within the CI/CD pipeline to defend against hacking, reverse engineering, mobile fraud, malware, malicious bots and ransomware as well as other emerging threats that target mHealth apps. 

Communicating these updates with users will help decrease churn and improve brand loyalty.

The future of apps

Millennials may have become accustomed to the mobile-first lifestyle, but the incoming workforce of Gen Z were born using mobile apps, and they have never known anything different. As such, they will seek user experience equivalency in the workplace and in their home lives. So, with mobile a shoo-in to dominate, it’s clear that mobile users consider mobile app security and protection to be a key part of the user experience.

Ensuring the provision of a seamless, and secure, user experience via mobile apps should be a top priority for every business. 

Alan Bavosa is VP Security Products at Appdome 

Main image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com