The world of app development is an exciting, yet sometimes confusing place. One of the first decisions you will face is which type of app to build. And there is no definitive answer. Your choice will depend on a bunch of competing factors including your budget and your deadline. The aim of this article is to give you a sound understanding of the different types of apps available and to aid your decision as to what technology you should use to build your app.
The moment you consider investing in a mobile app, you’re immediately faced with a barrage of terminology. What’s the difference between iOS and Android? What are native, hybrid and web apps? More importantly, which is most appropriate for you and your app?
When talking about mobile app development, we are generally talking about developing for mobile devices. There are also apps for the web and wearable like smartwatches, but for the ideas of this article, we’ll stay within the boundaries of mobile devices like phones and tablets.
The commercial triumph of smartphones and tablets isn’t viewing any signs of slowing down. While it may seem like everybody around you has a smartphone, there are approx 1 billion smartphone users worldwide. So in the subsequently few years, you can look ahead to billions of people around the world to be getting their first smartphone. The occasion to get your app into the app store and into the hands of millions of people is still rising.
Mobile Apps
There are basically two types of mobile apps: native and hybrid
Native Apps
Native apps are what you would generally think about when you imagine about apps. The majority of the mobile apps on your mobile devices are native apps.
Google and Apple provide app developers their own development tools, interface elements and standardised SDK; Xcode and Android Studio. This permits any expert developer to develop a native app relatively simply.
Advantages of native apps
So, why are most apps native? The cause is that native apps have a numeral of major advantages over the substitutes.
They provide the best, most trustworthy and most reactive experience to users. This is unlikely to change in support of web apps.
It is simple to tap into the wider functionality of the device including the microphone, camera, compass, swipe gestures and accelerometer. It’s still likely using the alternatives, but it’s simplest on native.
Native apps can create use of push-notifications, alerting users when their concentration is required in the app. You get the chance to frequently bring your spectators back for more which is key to a victorious app.
You’re more expected to delight your users due to the method you can match each app’s designing to the platform conventions. There are dozens of designing dissimilarities that construct users feel at home. By building native, you don’t have to cooperation with design that you trust will be user-friendly for all platforms.
Examples of Native Apps
Most of the trendiest apps out there like Pokemon Go, Waze, and Twitter are fully native. It’s turn out to be trickier though to distinguish who’s using entirely native code on Swift, Objective C and Java and who’s relying on hybrid solution or cross-platform SDKs.
What are hybrid apps?
If a web app and a native app got wedded and had a child, it would be a hybrid app. You install it like a native app but it’s truly a web app on the inside. Hybrid apps, just like web apps are built with HTML, CSS, and Javascript and run in amazing called Webview, a simplify browser within your app.
Why should you believe hybrid? Say you have a plan for a mobile app and you don’t identify if people will like it or unlike. Your objective is to put something practical into their hands as speedily as possible. In the startup world, this is called an MVP( minimum viable product). You’re short on resources so you require to build the easy version of your product that still offers value. Building a web app might be the really least option, but won’t actually permit you to test whether public will download and utilize an app on their device.
Advantages of Hybrid Apps
All the advantages of hybrid apps branch from the fact that instead of creating two apps, you’re building one app and change it a bit so it works on both platforms. Now you only have one codebase to administer. This will most likely require half quantity of developers two native apps would have requisite.Or, with the similar number of developers, a hybrid app could be available in half the time.
Developers for hybrid apps are frequently less costly than native developers
Hybrid apps are simple to scale to another platform. Once you’ve create for one platform, you can launch on another platform easily
Hybrid apps save you time and money
