Mobile Responsive Designs Vs Mobile Apps

August 4, 2016 | Category: Archived, Featured Posts, Internet & Marketing Trends, Web Design Musing

img-mobile-apps-resposive-designWe have had quite a few clients come to us with questions about mobile responsive designs and mobile apps. As such, we wanted to share with you some of the differences between mobile apps and responsive design and explain which of the two might be best for you and your business.

Mobile Responsive Design

A mobile responsive website is the most common choice for many of our clients. With a mobile responsive design your current website responds to the user’s screen size, platform and orientation.  Taking this path means there is no need for additional or duplicate content to be created or maintained as we work with your current website and code it to work with other devices. The existing content on the website is simply reformatted/styled to deliver a tailored experience based on a user’s device. There is no need for users to download a mobile application or take additional steps to view the site. The cost to develop and integrate a mobile optimized/responsive site it much less in comparison to a mobile application.

Mobile Apps

Mobile apps are not as necessary for most businesses, depending on your needs. A mobile app is a separate application which is downloaded and installed on a user’s mobile device. Users visit device-specific download portals such as Apple’s App Store, Android Market or Blackberry App World in order to find and download apps for a given operating system and users must run the application in order to view content. The app may pull content and data from the Internet, in similar fashion to a website, or it may download the content so that it can be accessed without an Internet connection. The development time/cost is usually much more substantial than developing a mobile optimized/responsive website. For many of our clients’ needs, we suggest the mobile responsive design but in some cases a mobile app may make sense. D4 can help steer you in the right direction and create the best app or responsive website design for your business. Contact D4 Advanced Media today to discuss your options.

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