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Android Apps development might be the way to go if the product or service you wish to sell or market is designed exclusively for people who surf the Web with Android devices. But what if you also want to reach the billions who don’t?

The answer – in South Florida as elsewhere – is mobile friendly web development.

Andriod Apps, like all native apps, are software APPlications (computer programming) written for a specific operating platform: In this case the Linux-based Android smartphone operating systems developed by Android, Inc., acquired by Google and maintained by the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). Here’s a notable quote:

Android became the world’s leading smartphone platform at the end of 2010. For the first quarter of 2012, Android had a 59% smartphone market share worldwide. At the half of 2012, there were 400 million devices activated and 1 million activations per day. Analysts point to the advantage to Android of being a multi-channel, multi-carrier OS… Android has a large community of developers writing applications (‘apps’) that extend the functionality of the devices. Developers write primarily in a customized version of Java… In October 2011, there were more than 500,000 apps available for Android.”

Source: http://tinyurl.com/ybz5twk

Two of several questions this should bring to mind are “Does anyone really need 500,000 Android Apps?” and “Do I really want to spend my limited marketing money developing Android App #500,001?”

The answers for most small to medium-sized businesses are: NO, and NO.

If you eliminate all the redundancies, sales gimmicks, apps that are little more than website gateway links and other marketing spam, that 500,000 figure would be much, much lower. Even then, the percentage of the remainder that offered any real utility for any given user would be miniscule. And if your online marketing budget is limited, why spend it developing an app that’s only accessible by Android users when for the same or less money you could develop a Mobile Web App, W3C mobileOK minipage or Mobile Friendly website that would be accessible by Android users and everyone else? It’s your call to make:

Android App development? Or Mobile Web development?

We hope you’ll call us!

Many people and the media tend to treat “web design” vs “web development” as interchangeable phrases when actually they are interdependent processes. Some generalize by saying a “web designer” is concerned with how the website LOOKS while a “web developer” is focused on what the website DOES, but even that’s an oversimplification:

HOW A WEBSITE LOOKS is a function of aesthetics and accessibility. Stated another way, how a website looks depends on both how it was designed and how it is delivered. The web designer’s responsibilities in this regard typically include the creation, selection or assimilation of color palettes, backgrounds, foregrounds, gradients, overlays, fonts, copy, imagery, screen layout, and that all-important intangible “look and feel”. The web developer’s contributions include the website template, architecture, navigation, user agent access and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Semantic Web (Web 3.0), WAI/WCAG/Section 508 and Mobile Web standards compliance requirements associated with each.

WHAT A WEBSITE DOES can be viewed as a function of medium and mechanics. In this context, “medium” refers to format and content while “mechanics” refers to behavior. Here the web designer combines the application of hypertext markup language (e.g. XHTML or HTML5) for messaging and cascading stylesheets (e.g. CSS or CSS3) for presentation in such a way as to create a web browser rendered result that is visually appealing and – for marketing and sales web pages – psychologically compelling. The web developer adds animation, interactive behavior and transaction processing capabilities to the mix using dynamic scripting languages like PHP, relational databases like MySQL, server-side CGI applications written in Perl, client-side unobtrusive Javascript programming, jQuery plugins and AJAX updates, and increasing popular Mobile Web apps.

Yes, “web design” and “web development” are different concepts. But hopefully we have shown here that these processes are inextricably intertwined … two sides of the same coin … and the Yin and Yang of website creation. Give us a call and we’ll show you how we bring the two together to create winning business and ecommerce websites!

The Google Mobile home page is accessible from any iPhone, Android phone or any other mobile phone with Internet access at “m.google.com“. Selecting “Search” from there will take you to the mobile version of the Google search engine. Run a search and you may see that the results are very different from what is served up to a standard laptop or robust tablet browser. Aside from less advertising, another difference you might notice are little green cell phone icons on some listings which designate them to be “mobile friendly”.

If a prospect runs a search that returns listings for you and your competitors – and one boasts the “mobile friendly” designation while others don’t – which will they be most likely to choose?

Successful online marketing is a function of visibility and accessibility, and the Google “mobile friendly” designation can contribute greatly to both. But that mark of distinction cannot be bought any more than you can pay Google for top natural search rankings. It must be earned by designing website source and content in conformity with W3C standards and Mobile Web markup guidelines. In other words, it must be earned for you by your web developer.

If your web developer has not made their own website mobile friendly, what does that say about what they can for you?

On 29 March 2012, a Google Mobile search on the term “mobile web design miami” reflected that of the Top 10 results returned, Google awarded their mobile-friendly green phone icon to only 6 pages representing 3 websites and only one Miami web design firm: WebReDesignMiami.com, and our affiliate sites PervasivePersuasion.com and Web3.0DesignMiami.com. Many of our web development clients in Miami, South Florida and beyond also enjoy that designation. UmiWaste.com is one of them:

What can we do for you?

Microsoft Tag projects that mobile internet usage will exceed desktop usage by 2014, and Apple is spending millions to convince app developers and mobile consumers that the majority of that traffic will be coming from iPhones. That is possible, but far from likely. Here is why: Of the 4 billion plus mobile phones currently in use around the globe, only about 27% qualify as “smartphones”, and only fraction of those are iPhones. According to a recent Nielson Survey, for example, a rising 37% of the U.S. mobile market use smartphones, but Apple’s share is only 26% of that 37%, or less than 10% of U.S. mobile phone users overall.

iPhone Apps may be “wicked cool”, but the statistics above suggest their coolness may never reach 90% of the mobile market. And even if your pockets are deep enough to develop an equivalent Android App … plus versions of your Mobile App for all of the other smartphone operating systems … you will still be missing almost two-thirds (63%) of today’s mobile internet users.

So how, you are hopefully asking, do you reach them all?

For small businesses with tight budgets–and those who want the biggest bang for their web marketing buck–the answer is to couple Web 3.0 design with W3C mobileOK mobile mini-pages. Semantically-optimized and flash-free web pages that pass all of the Seven Tests of Web 3.0 Readiness are accessible by over 99% of all desktop, notebook and tablet computer web browsers, including the Apple iPad series. Add HTML5/CSS3, a separate stylesheet for cross-platform minibrowsers like Opera Mobile, and a mobile mini-page for older microbrowsers like Openwave, and your mobile commerce (m-commerce) offerings will be accessible by virtually every cell phone manufactured since 2006. And all for a tiny fraction of the high cost to develop a mobile app.

Why pay so much to reach so few?

For a free, no-obligation Mobile App alternatives consultation, call Mobile Web designer Bruce Arnold at 305-597-8340.

Classic Filters Ltd is known around the world as gas and liquid filter-system experts. Distributed by Frontier Group of the Americas, their comprehensive line of industrial, instrumentation, CNG, testing, sampling and analytical filtration solutions includes everything from stainless steel PTFE membrane filter housings to replacement filter elements to complete filtering systems.

Designed with Semantic Web results in mind by the firm that defines web design Miami, their jQuery-animated smartphone-friendly distributor website passes the seven tests of readiness for semantic front-end web development and Web 3.0 design, including W3C and WCAG/Section 508 standards compliant and validated XHTML, CSS and Javascript.   Its PHP/MySQL generated design consequently enjoys high visibility and accessibility across a broad range of PC, Mac, iPad and other tablet computer browsers. An accompanying W3C mobileOK mobile website enables access via smartphones or any other Internet-capable cellphones.