Where people are rushing toward expanding their business and customer base by out and-out usage of mobile technology, we see an outrageous number of mobile applications gushing into the market every day. Blame it on the smartphone that has taken the world on the ramp of revolution which is determined to linger at least until the next big thing is in. Mobile users like you and me have hackneyed a host of mobile applications which have significantly affected our lives so much so that we could barely keep our hands off our smartphones. So what goes into making such versatile and over-the-top mobile applications? Well, there’s in fact a lot for us to discover that these applications are beyond a mere merger of high-end features and appealing designs. The technologies implemented, platforms supported, and the languages used to build these applications play critical in determining the scope, acceptance, usage and success of mobile application development. There are indeed three different categories of applications, serving disparate purposes, being developed by mobile app developers and each application belongs to some or the other category. Let’s dive into each one and gain a deeper understanding of how these applications are turning heads in the market!
- Native App
Native Apps are designed and developed to run on specific platform or device. These apps are primarily coded and built using a particular language, say Java for Android platform and Objective-C or Swift to support iOS platform. Since these apps are developed to execute in particular OS, they are comparatively faster and reliable. However, at the same time, it increases the development cost as the apps are platform-specific and ought to be replicated to support other platforms. For your applications to support several platforms, you got to maintain a different software which becomes complex and heavy on the pocket. While users download and install the Native apps from respective app stores like Google Play Store for Android devices and Apple App Store for iOS devices, there are certain apps that can run without an internet connection too. Besides, the Native apps can easily access the device’s internal applications like address book and camera. Instagram is the perfect example of the Native app.
- Web App
Web applications are authentically websites that appear similar to Native apps and are coded using HTML5, stored on the remote server, and run through a browser. These apps can be accessed by navigating to desired URLs and installing these on the device by bookmarking the page. Whereas, the mobile web applications that run on the mobile phone’s web browser are created using JavaScript and HTML5. The mobile web apps are fetched and run from the mobile web browser as and when needed, thereby they do not occupy any separate space on the mobile device. HTML5 has been widely accepted as a powerful tool to build interactive and customized web applications that fade away the distinction between web apps and normal web pages. Web application development is seen to expand with its growing popularity as it can run effortlessly on all types of browsers starting from Safari, Android Browser, Opera Mini, BlackBerry Browser, and the likes. The best example of the Web app is Moodboard.
- Hybrid App
Hybrid apps are an amalgamation of features of both Native and Web apps. They are built using JavaScript and HTML5 and run through the web browser. The HTML page is rendered and JavaScript is processed locally using device’s browser engine, and the app is run in the device’s native container. This process allows the Hybrid applications to access the device’s capabilities like a camera or internal storage. Mobile app development companies replace the existing web pages with Hybrid apps rather than building a separate app and leverage the peculiarities of the category time and again which often fetches them a noticeable presence in the app store. In addition, the Hybrid app enables building cross-platform apps as the HTML components can be conveniently used over different operating systems, depleting time and cost of development. PhoneGap and Rubymotion are two of the popular Hybrid app development tools while Basecamp is a good example of Hybrid App.
It is important to consider various aspects and factors before deciding which type of app would suit your business needs. Native and Hybrid apps provide rich product experiences but are heavier on the costs while Web apps are lighter on the pockets and don’t really require much access to device’s internal features. Analyzing your current priorities and future prospects is the best way to choose what amongst these works best for you.
