Generally, is it better to trade using a broker's web app running in your desktop browser, or is the native iOS mobile app better? Unfortunately, there is no broker here in the PH that offers a Java desktop application much less .Net or OS X apps, so that's out of the question. It's either a web app or a mobile app.
Better in what way? Usability? Convenience? Security? These new fangled brokers are mobile-first and (at present) are mobile-only: https://www.robinhood.com https://www.freetrade.io They are also zero-commission businesses but that's probably tangential. The thing is, they are targeted at a different demographic to the active day trader that probably wants/needs charts and more detailed pre-trade analytics and analysis - and that is better done on a larger display via a browser or desktop application. Then there are brokers that have both browser and mobile offerings. The mobile app being good for monitoring positions etc. on the go but the browser for more involved interactions. Difficult to answer your question without more specifics. Doesn't Interactive Broker's TWS work in PH?
Better overall, but most especially in speed and reliability. Stated differently: would you rather trade using a web app, or a mobile app? BTW, the reason I'm asking is that I'm trying to figure out how much weight I should put in a broker's app offering when choosing brokers. I haven't looked at IB yet. Looking at the local offerings at the moment for investing/trading in the PSE. ...but I'll take a peek.
It depends on if YOU are actually going to be mobile yourself frequently, or if you're going to be in a desktop environment for most of your trades. I certainly wouldn't sit there trading from a tablet or phone if I had access to a desktop with a large monitor, that's for sure. But if my time was significantly split between a desktop environment and being out and about, then I would definitely give the mobile app some pretty heavy weight.
The mobile experience has improved tremendously over the years and Trading Technologies has developed trading functionality for desktop browsers as well as apps for phones and tablets. You're welcome to read more about it here: https://www.tradingtechnologies.com/blog/2015/10/28/no-compromise-the-next-gen-tt-platform/
Depends on how old you are. I know a few millennial traders who only trade on their iPhones. Older traders stick to their PCs or laptops.
Regarding speed of CPU and reliability, ARM CPU in phone cannot the CPU of PC/laptop. Probably because of the size limitation and heat transfer in SMALL device.
Actually, I was asking about the speed of a native mobile app vs the speed of a web app running inside a browser--not the speed of mobile vs desktop CPUs. Everybody knows that mobile CPUs can't hold a candle to desktop CPUs. I just wasn't sure if a web app runs slower than a mobile app since the former is running inside a browser and doesn't have direct access to OS resources, while the latter runs natively.
Mobile apps are different to each brokers. However, since most brokers use HTML5 for standard communcation, it might be quite easy to make automatic buy/sell with COMMON coding for each brokers. If so, it is also easy to change to new brokers with better commission than previous brokers. (I mean auto trading implies preparing(programming) order matrix with 100 rows, and sending the matrix IN ONE SINGLE CLICK to broker server.)