Different Options for Mobile App Development Smartphones have evolved a lot in the recent years and now they have become networked multimedia devices with many advanced features and it looks like in coming years they will become even more advanced. The most important feature of smartphones is mobility which has impacted our lives in a positive way. It has changed how we conduct business and how we communicate and collaborate with each others. As per a recent report, 62% of all the digital media time is now spent on mobile devices and 80% of this time is actually spent on mobile apps.
Are you and your Business Ready for the Mobile App Revolution?
The demand for Mobile Applications Development is on the rise. Now the customers are always moving and they are becoming more dependent on mobile applications to do their everyday tasks. Whether they are using smartphone, tablet or mobile, they want to have all the information they need on their fingertips. Hence in today’s business environment you and your business can’t afford to avoid mobile apps. If now you agree that your business needs a mobile app then let’s go deeper and understand what’s all that requires for mobile app development. There are various factors that can influence your mobile strategy like the device features required by you, mobile app development skills of your team, interoperability and many more. Mobile app development is not just about what
you want your app to do but it is also about how you are going to do that. Hence lots of trial and error is needed during the mobile app development process to reach the final solution. Each mobile app development scenario has its own pros and cons hence you need to take care of that.
Main Options for Mobile App Development Different Mobile App Development Company use different ways and tools to develop mobile apps. The options for mobile app development are native, hybrid or HTML5 app. â—?
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Native Apps are created for specific mobile platform. They use platform specific development tools and languages like Objective-C for iOS and Java for Android. Native apps have good performance.
HTML5 apps are built using HTML, JavaScript and CSS. A carefully designed HTML5 app supports interoperability across multiple platforms. It is possible for the developers to develop sophisticated mobile app with HTML5 but still some limitations can remain like secure offline storage, access to functionality of native devices such as camera, calendar etc. Hybrid apps allow embedding for HTML5 apps inside a native app and combine the best elements of both native as well as HTML5 apps.
Native Mobile Applications Native apps provide best features, amazing user experience and great usability. There are many features that are found in native apps. Native apps are generally built using an IDE i.e. Integrated Development Environment which has inbuilt tools for developing, project management, debugging, testing and other required tools for many other functions needed by the developers. The developers develop the native apps using all of these tools but native apps are not that easy to develop. The developers need to have deep technical knowledge to develop native apps. Native apps are beneficial for the developers as well as for the users. These apps can be easily found in app stores and anyone can install them easily. They provide fast performance as well as have an attractive look and feel. HTML5 Mobile Applications HTML5 apps are interoperable across many platforms and can be accessed by using any mobile web browser. One of the main benefit of HMTL5 app is that the content is available for searches on the web which is very beneficial to any business. For the new app developer, it is comparatively easier to learn how to
develop HTML5 mobile app than to develop native or hybrid app. There is also much better distribution and support available for HTML5 than that for native apps. HTML5 is fast replacing Flash for creation of interactive web pages and e-Books and is also increasingly preferred for building mobile applications. To create enhanced banners and flash creatives, mobile app development companies are now switching from Flash to HTML5. HTML5 apps are much easier to develop and also support interoperability. Hybrid Mobile Applications Hybrid mobile app development includes the best of both native and HTML5 apps. The Hybrid mobile app developers can optimize the JavaScript, can use CSS to create amazing layouts and can write HTML codes that work on all platforms without having to sacrifice the native features. Native apps are installed on a device and HTML5 apps are available by a web browser while hybrid apps can be implemented in two ways i.e local and server. In local way, the HTML and JavaScript code is packaged inside the mobile app binary, to make the structure similar to that of native apps and the REST APIs are used to move and share data between devices and the cloud. In server way, full web application is implemented from the server, by using the container as a thin shell above the user interface web view.
Conclusion While all of the above discussed three ways of creative mobile apps are popular and used but due to its ease of creation and benefits creating Hybrid Mobile applications is getting more popular. As the demand for smartphones and use of mobile app will continue to rise rapidly hence the developers have to learn the new skills like HTML5, JavaScript, CSS to develop new apps with more attractive look and feel and advanced features.