Development cost is the main barrier to success for a business or

publisher who needs to create a mobile presence. Among the

biggest development decisions is whether to create a native appfor all smartphone or tablet platforms, or to depend on mobile

Web browsers to deliver content — using HTML5 and other

browser based technologies. This is sometimes called a Web app.Each approach has advantages and disadvantages, which are rap-

idly shifting as the respective technologies evolve. The challenge

is to decide which approach meets the immediate need at a sus-

tainable cost. Companies must also anticipate the best time to

switch (or whether to switch at all) and preserve as much IT invest-

ment as possible.

BackgroundInformation portability has always been a driving force — often a dis-

ruptive one. Printing itself was such a shift. It challenged the ability

of centralised bodies to control information, putting it in the hands

of more people. From Gutenberg’s time to the rise of desktop pub-

lishing, the evolution of mass-produced print has served to make

information access cheaper and more accessible — more “democra-

tic,” to use the common refrain.

The Web itself followed the same path — decentralising information

consumption, and making it instantly available wherever there’s an

Internet connection. The restrictions on portability were addressed

in part by the rise of laptop PCs. With the rise of mobile phones and

their intersection with the Web, a truly portable information environ-

ment has become more feasible. Smartphones and tablets are

increasingly powerful computing devices, with full access to

cloud-based information and applications.

Although mobile publishing is relatively new,

it is arguably even more disruptive than

the Web has been. Information access is

not only immediate and ever-changing;

it’s performed on devices that users

seldom leave behind. Smartphones and

tablets have unique, built-in features,

such as telephony, geolocation, photo/

video creation, and on-site purchasing

capabilities, that regular PCs lack. They

reflect a significant personal and location-

based context for their users, which must be

understood by content publishers before there can be truly mean-

ingful interaction. A publishing strategy that views these devices as

merely portable browsers is bound to fail.

The Rise of the AppBoth Apple iOS and Google Android devices have popularised the

native app as a means of delivering interactive content. These self-

contained applications often rely on Internet connections to deliver

current data — sometimes using HTML5 in a browser-like window —

but can also store information on the device itself, to be read offline.

It also uses the device’s built-in capabilities, like a camera or an

accelerometer, to create the overall user experience. It also relies

heavily on touch screens and the various hand gestures typical for

smartphones and tablets, creating a more immediate interface

between users and their information technology.

Other benefits of native apps include discoverability — the ability

of consumers to easily find and consume a company’s packaged

content on the App Store or Google Play. In addition to this mar-

keting and promotional benefit, apps also make it easier to mone-

tise content — if you don’t mind the healthy commissions charged

by Apple or Google.

To do all this, an app must be created in the “native” ecosystem

provided by Apple, Google, or Microsoft. In addition, screen size

and other hardware variations between smartphones and tablets

— or even between different tablet types — often requires multi-

ple versions of each app or require additional complexity to allow

an app to be “responsive.”

For traditional developers of games or productivity

software, the burden of supporting multiple

devices and environments is simply a cost of

doing business. So too is the need for

technical support in a rapidly changing

device landscape. However, for busi-

nesses and publishers who simply want

to make content available via mobile,

becoming a full-time app developer is

not an attractive prospect.

Businesses and publishers need not to

become software developers, per se, in

order to generate mobile app versions of their

Businesses and publications have been wrestling with “mobile publishing”for a relatively short time. Apple’s iPhone was introduced in 2007, andthe iPad tablet in 2010. Other portable devices, like laptops, have been

around much longer. However, the modern smartphone/tablet phenomenon —and the pressure created by the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend — havecreated a sense of urgency that’s hard for businesses to ignore.

Are Mobile Apps Just a Fad?

content. Adobe’s Digital Publishing Suite and Quark’s App Studio

are two examples of environments for creating viable smartphone

and tablet apps today. However, the question remains, with the

rapid proliferation of devices, is there a better long-term solution

for mobile content?

The Mobile WebThe likely alternative to native apps may well be the Web itself —

not in its traditional, desktop browser incarnation, but in a deliber-

ately mobile-optimised state. Rather than rely on specially-created

apps, content is delivered via the built-in browser on each device,

such as Safari on iOS or Chrome on Android. To provide the visual

display quality expected on a mobile device, the content would

utilise the latest Web standards such as HTML5 and CSS3.

The benefits of using a Web approach are obvious, especially if the

business or publisher already has a mature content management

strategy. Mobile browsers are pre-installed on most devices, and are

maintained by their respective developers. Correctly formatted con-

tent is device-agnostic; screen size is irrelevant, and users can adjust

things like type size to suit their individual needs. Among Web devel-

opers, the concept of “responsive design” — sites that can dynami-

cally adjust to any device or screen size — is becoming more popular.

Perhaps the most important reason to consider Web apps, however,

is that using a browser frees the business or publisher from much of

the IT and development burden of maintaining native apps.

Trend LeadersCertain types of businesses are more likely than others to rely on

Web apps rather than native apps for publishing content on tablet

and smartphones. Information-driven entities like banking and

financial services companies, manufacturing, government agen-

cies, and daily news publishing organisations typically need a plat-

form that favours speed of content delivery over design or

device-driven considerations. For them, the mobile Web is clearly

a more effective path.

For such data-driven companies, native apps simply may not be able

to handle the sheer volume of information. This was seen in

Facebook’s recent move towards the mobile Web — which is

remarkably “app like” in appearance and functionality.

There are some practical reasons for preferring the Web approach

to native mobile apps. If a company already has a robust, secure,

online billing or subscription system, or if it already “owns” its

audience’s loyalty, then there is less need for the commerce or dis-

coverability offered by native apps. The Financial Times’ evolutionof its already strong Web presence into a Web app for smart-

phones and tablets is a good example.

In these companies’ move toward the Web, we see the evolution

of HTML5 development towards many of the things we value in

native apps: improvements in the user experience, thanks to the

responsive design trend, coupled with better use of context —

who the user is, where he or she is, what he or she is doing — in a

browser-centric environment.

Barriers to MigrationFor many, the mobile Web is already the preferred path for content

publishing. Some are simply modifying their existing Web presence

to include mobile — with mixed success. However, for the time

being, there are still some significant issues that, for many, will mean

reliance on native apps in the near term.

Perhaps the greatest reason to stick with apps — for now — is that

smartphones and tablets are changing too rapidly for a browser-

based control environment to succeed. For businesses and publish-

ers that need the billing or discoverability benefits of digital

newsstands right now, the native app approach is a major incentive.

Another issue is the native functionality of mobile devices, includ-

ing touch screens, cameras and accelerometers. These are out-

side the norm for traditional Web development, and are not

universally or uniformly deployed. Even common interface tech-

niques, such as turning a “page” by swiping across the screen,

are also not standardised in the scrolling world of browsers. Web-

only development has simply not caught up with the rapidly

changing mobile user experience.

Part of that experience has been the ability of users to consume con-

tent and run programmes locally, on their own devices, without an

active Internet connection. This is a major barrier to browser-only

mobile publishing, even with dramatic increases in Wi-Fi and mobile

connectivity. Browser-based storage of local content is often limited

to 5–10MB; native apps can store more. For the time being, local

content needs will dictate whether a native app is needed. However,

as device capacity grows and operating system limits are relaxed,

this problem will diminish.

Security and e-commerce are more serious, albeit temporary barri-

ers to non-app publishing. Apps, proprietary by nature, have an

advantage over browsers, where vulnerabilities are an ongoing

problem. Major publishers have also complained that HTML5 does

not yet have an established financial transaction model that meets

the needs of all parties. Mobile commerce is progressing rapidly,

but many businesses and consumers are taking a conservative

adoption path.

Perhaps the greatest reason why browsers trail apps is the very

nature of the Web and its path to standardisation. HTML5, while

2 ©2013 Quark Software Inc. All rights reserved

For businesses and publishers who simply want to make content available via mobile, becoming a full-time

app developer is not an attractive prospect.

essential to robust display of content, is still not a fully established

standard; version 5.0 probably won’t reach formal recommendation

status until 2014. The agendas of competing browser developers,

whose software is usually free, will ensure that standardisation

remains a slow process, with the specific needs of businesses and

publishers taking a back seat.

The Hybrid ApproachEventually, the dominance of the proprietary app will decline for

most businesses and publishers. Using a common infrastructure is

always preferable to re-inventing new vehicles for content delivery.

HTML and XML are already at the heart of modern digital content —

even the most seemingly proprietary: ebooks. As browsers become

more capable of storing and handling complex local content, and as

the standards for security and commerce mature, businesses and

publishers will find it more cost-effective to develop Web apps.

This is not an absolute, either-or projection, however. For device-

specific activities (like games), apps will remain strong. Where infor-

mation is truly time-dependent and dynamic, the mobile Web will

dominate. There is an enormous middle ground between them,

requiring a hybrid approach. The stable, versatile “container” for

information, will probably consist of a mobile browser — with spe-

cific plugins in place of standalone apps.

For information-intensive businesses and publishers, the mobile

Web is already a primary “container” for delivering critical content.

As mobile devices proliferate and gain even greater acceptance, the

ability of a company to render and manage its content effectively

over multiple channels — including native apps, for the time being

— will be a successful part of the mobile revolution.

To be an effective solution for businesses and publishers, a mobile con-

tent rendering workflow must be a “hybrid” approach in many ways. It

must work with multiple authoring platforms, including Microsoft Word,

InDesign, QuarkXPress, and structured XML data. More importantly, it

must allow for both app and HTML5 output, thus providing a “future

proof” approach to rendering content for mobile users — thereby gain-

ing the wider benefits of a true multi-channel environment.

3 ©2013 Quark Software Inc. All rights reserved

App Studio is the next generation digital publishing solution that uses

HTML5 to push the bounds of user experience without the high cost

and effort associated with custom app development. By combining the

market-leading HTML5 technology from the recent acquisition of

PressRun with Quark’s existing digital publishing technology, App

Studio is the only digital publishing solution that allows users to create

branded content apps using QuarkXPress, InDesign, HTML5, and XML.

Through a managed cloud environment, designers, authors, and

extended teams are able to collaborate to create rich, interactive

content that can be delivered across multiple platforms and devices.

North AmericaQuark Software Inc.1225 17th StreetSuite 1200Denver, CO 80203

EuropeQuark Software Inc.Medius House63 - 69 New Oxford StreetLondon, WC1A 1EAUnited Kingdom

AsiaQuark Software Inc.A 45 Industrial AreaPhase VIII B Mohali 160059Punjab, India

JapanQuark Software Inc.Wind Ebisu bldg.2-4-8 Ebisu-nishiShibuya-ku, Tokyo150-0021 Japan

©2013 Quark Software Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorised use and/or reproduction are violations of applicable laws. Quark, QuarkXPress, and the Quark logoare trademarks or registered trademarks of Quark Software Inc. and its affiliates in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other marks are the property of theirrespective owners. 02623CM_IE

About

Get started for free at www.AppStudio.net

About Shaun BarriballShaun Barriball is theVice President ofMobile Products forQuark Software Inc.With over 10 years inthe mobile industry hehas experienced acrossall aspects of themobile content valuechain — from workingwith operators to develop their service delivery platforms todelivering content to these platforms as on-portal services. Thisexperience has given Shaun a broad view of the mobile market,including the pitfalls, the challenges, and the risks. In 2005Shaun founded Mobile IQ, provider of PressRun, the award-winning tablet publishing platform, which was acquired byQuark in 2012. In 2010 he was named in the Global Telecoms“40 under 40.” Reach Shaun at sbarriball@quark.com.