Mobile Platforms

Only if you need offline use, push notifications or device hardware, and people will use it often enough to justify installing it. Otherwise a responsive web application delivers the same value without install friction or store review.

No: it generally reduces it. Content inside an app is not on the web, so it cannot be crawled, ranked or cited. Anything that should be findable belongs on the site.

There are three routes to a mobile experience (a responsive web application, a cross-platform native app, or fully native apps) and the right one is decided by what device capabilities you genuinely need.

Building a native app when a website would do is one of the more expensive mistakes available, and it recurs because an app feels more substantial than a site.

As a marketing exercise: an app nobody has a reason to install is a cost with an ongoing maintenance tail; For content that should be findable in search, which an app removes from the web entirely; and Before a responsive web version has demonstrated that the use case is real

Does the experience need offline use, push or device hardware; Will people use it often enough to justify installing it; and Whether the content also needs to be discoverable in search

No install friction, no store review, one codebase, and it is findable in search. For most business use cases this is the honest answer, and it is the one most often skipped.

One codebase producing both platforms, appropriate when you need push notifications, offline use or device hardware. Accepts a performance ceiling that most business applications never reach.