The Dangerous National Obsession with Native Mobile Apps

Native mobile apps are being touted as the best thing since sliced bread by influential, ill-advised digital immigrants.  This is disappointing as they only consider the supposed coolness factor & ignore the minefield of issues that native apps present. Native apps are costlier to build than mobile web applications (websites that work on mobile browsers) and difficult to maintain. Native apps are useful only when they really utilize a smartphone's features for a good cause.

Even as one in three consumers know the mobile apps they are using will collect data about them, yet they download any app that “looked cool”, exposing themselves to privacy risks, according to a survey by cyber security firm Norton. Close to 50 per cent of Indians have over 20 apps on their smartphones, and mobile wallets and e-commerce apps are among the top five applications used.

A study by Norton analysed over 10.8 million apps in over 200 app stores. A third of them (3.3 million) come with malware, which can harm your phone in a variety of ways

Examples of Native Mobile apps promoted by  top political honchos that should have been Mobile Web apps:

* Celebrating the World Health Day, the Health Minister today launched ..the ‘Swasth Bharat Mobile application’ ..and ‘India Fights Dengue’

* Umang (Unified Mobile App for New Age Governance) mobile app which will be available in 12 Indian languages "will give services of central government , state government and local bodies. On a click of button people will be able to scan 1000 services of government. We will start it in December with National student scholarships, women safety and health care", according to the Telecom Minister

work in progress...

A malicious mobile web app is more likely to be exposed faster than a native app by search engines & browsers. The seductiveness of a native app can cost its victims heavily:
Responding to a question in Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Home Affairs, Haribhai Parathibhai Chaudhary also said Pakistan's spy agency was making efforts to trap ex-servicemen in the garb of providing job opportunities and financial aid for spying. "There are reports that Pakistani intelligence agencies are spying on Indian security forces by sending malwares in mobile apps such as Top Gun (game app), mpjunkie (music app), vdjunkey (video app), talking frog (entertainment app)", the minister said - NDTV