Mobile App Development

The most common types of mobile apps being developed today are native, web and hybrids of the two.

Native apps are installed on your device and accessed through the app icon on the device itself. They are installed through an app store (Apple’s App Store or Google Play). The native app is specifically developed for one platform and can take full advantage of all your device’s features including the camera, contact list, compass and GPS. Native apps can use your device’s notification system and work even when there is no internet connection.

Web apps are websites that look and behave like native apps. They are run by a browser and typically written in HTML5. Users first access them as they would any other web page. Often, they would be redirected to a special URL and then be prompted to “install” the web app by creating a bookmark to that page.

Web apps are only able to utilize some features of the device, like GPS and tap to call, while native features like notifications remain unavailable.

Hybrid apps combine the best of both worlds. Like native apps, they have to be downloaded in an app store and are able to utilize any of the features your device has. As for the web app part, they rely on HTML being rendered in a browser embedded within the app. Hybrids are quickly becoming the preferred mobile app today because of the reduced cost of development – mainly because multiple platforms (Windows, Iphone and Android) can use the same basic framework. Maintenance is also easier and these hybrid apps can fully utilize all of the features available on your smart device.

Whether online or offline the hybrid app still retains much of it’s advanced capabilities. And, best of all, hybrid apps can be distributed via app stores or search engines!

“edited from an article by Oleksiy Kuryliak, TechInAsia Community Forum”