From the developer's point of view, mobile apps give you more ways to retain the user's attention (a home screen icon, pop-up notifications, hooks for actions, etc.).
As a rule, desktop apps are used for producing and mobile apps for consuming. Which means that desktop apps generally don't need to pull the user in as much as mobile apps do - the user will come back on their own because that's where they're doing their work.
For apps used for consuming, the user's attention is everything, so mobile apps are preferred - the user is much less likely to find their way back on their own.
> As a rule, desktop apps are used for producing and mobile apps for consuming.
That's an interesting observation. I am not really interested in web IDE's, but I am happy to use google docs. Though I spend maybe 20 times more time writing code than documents.
As a rule, desktop apps are used for producing and mobile apps for consuming. Which means that desktop apps generally don't need to pull the user in as much as mobile apps do - the user will come back on their own because that's where they're doing their work.
For apps used for consuming, the user's attention is everything, so mobile apps are preferred - the user is much less likely to find their way back on their own.