When it comes to gambling on the go, there are two main ways to access and gamble on mobile casinos. A casino may offer a site you can access from any device with a browser, or a downloadable app for your tablet or smartphone. The top mobile casinos may even offer both options. When you’ve got a choice to make it can be hard to know which one to pick. Is one better than the other? How do you know? This guide will aim to answer those questions and help you decide which one is best for you.
How do mobile casino sites differ from apps?
You can access both a mobile casino site and a mobile casino app from a smartphone, so what are the differences between the two? There are numerous differences and sometimes the specifics can vary depending on the individual site or app, but there are some broad differences that apply to both. The biggest one is the fact that a mobile casino site is instantly accessible and playable from any browser provided you have an internet connection, whereas you need to download a mobile casino app before you can play it. If you’re on a limited bandwidth budget, then you can get playing quicker by accessing a casino’s website. You will also need to keep a mobile casino app updated, which is usually managed automatically by your smartphone, but again this costs bandwidth. For most this won’t be an issue, but if your phone contract is particularly restrictive with data allowances then it could be a problem.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of both?
Generally the top mobile casinos will do their best to offer feature parity across both their site and their apps. What this means is that, broadly speaking, the same features are available whether you access the casino from a site or an app and the user experience is comparable between the two. However, in practice this is not always the case. Though websites have evolved significantly over the last decade, they still tend to be slightly less feature rich than native apps.
Compatibility is generally the biggest issue for both mobile sites and apps, but it is a bigger issue for apps. There are two major mobile operating systems, Android and iOS, as well as a few other less popular systems such as Windows and Tizen. Apps are not cross-platform compatible, meaning that you cannot run an app made for Android on an iOS device or vice versa. The casino must develop a separate app for each operating system it wishes to support. In theory this problem does not apply to mobile sites, as any device with a web browser should be compatible. In practice browser bugs and other minor differences between browsers, such as Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome, mean that the user experience may not always be exactly the same, but it generally doesn’t matter which device you are using to access a mobile casino site.
Which one is best for my use case?
Every user is different and this means every user has slightly different use cases. Nevertheless, some general conclusions can be reached that can help you decide whether a mobile casino site or a mobile casino app is better for you.
If your contract restricts bandwidth or your internet access is unreliable, you’re better off using a casino app. Although they must be downloaded and updated, there are apps that offer offline play. Generally speaking a mobile casino site requires a constant internet connection to play, so you simply flat out cannot play on a mobile casino site without one. If you own your own device and use it frequently then an app is also a better bet, but if you tend to jump between devices a lot then a mobile casino site is probably a better fit for you. You don’t need to download any special software and you can take your experience from your smartphone to your tablet and laptop seamlessly.
Generally speaking you can have an excellent mobile casino experience with both mobile casino sites and mobile apps, but sometimes one is a better fit than the other. A well designed mobile casino site and app should offer roughly comparable experiences, but this is not always the case for various reasons. Even when it is, each use case is different and what your requirements are will tip the balance in favour of one over the other.