Mobile Apps and Web Applications Development

The Ultimate Guide To Mobile Apps and Web Applications Development

Mobile devices are the new portals through which we interact with the world around us. These devices include smartphones, tablets, phablets, PDAs – Personal digital assistants, and smartwatches. One thing to note is that they operate using software or programs designed to execute specific commands – mobile apps. 

As a regular mobile device user, you have interacted with most of these apps and are aware of how easy it is to become dependent on them. For instance, without a PDF viewer app such as Adobe Reader, viewing a document on your smartphone or tablet is hard. 

However, these apps have different functionalities and capabilities, depending on their framework and type. Therefore, let’s look at the classification of these apps and their examples. 

Types and Categories of Apps

1. Mobile Apps

Mobile apps are developed to function with either a specific Operating System or multiple. Hence, the two sub-groups are native apps and hybrid apps. In this case, native apps are designed to function with systems or devices. In contrast, a hybrid can work with various devices and Operating Systems.

a). Native Mobile Apps

iOS, Android, Windows, and BlackBerry OS are the standard mobile Operating Systems today. Mobile device manufacturers have continually developed devices that run on these platforms. On the other hand, mobile app developers have also been crafting apps that work on these specific devices. These apps are the native types – they are native to the device. Simply put, an Android app will not work with an iOS device. 

Native apps are programmed with specific languages. For instance, Android apps are developed using Kotlin and Java, while Objective-C – C and Swift are developed for iOS.

The pros and cons of native apps include; 

Pros:

• Highly responsive. 
• It can work while offline. 
• They are available to the public easily in app stores.

 

Cons:

• Expensive. 
• Require regular maintenance.
• Take time to design and develop.

 

Examples of Native Mobile Apps

Most apps commonly used today, such as Twitter and Instagram, are native. Even though you will find similarities in them on different mobile devices, they were built separately. 

b). Hybrid Mobile Apps

Unlike native apps, a hybrid can work in any OS. They have a framework for cross-platform development using Software Development Kits and SDKs. They are somewhat like natives but also quite different. 

Hybrid apps are built using HTML, JavaScript, and CSS technologies. After development, they are designed to run in a simplified browser within WebView.

They are the best options if you are looking to offer a product or service via an app while having limited resources. This is one of the advantages of hybrid apps. 

Pros:

• Easy management since it’s a one-codebase app for multiple platforms.
• Inexpensive compared to native apps.
• Access to device features is available as with the native app.

 

Cons: 

• Poor performance. 
• Slower than natives.
• Poor UX/UI design.

 

Examples of Hybrid Mobile Apps

Since there are multiple hybrid app development platforms, such as Cordova and PhoneGap, many hybrid apps exist in the market today. They include MarketWatch, Untappd, Offcourse Golf, and many others.

2. Web Apps

Web apps are the app versions of websites. What does that mean? A web app is an app that is accessed via a browser but not as a hybrid app. These apps are built with standard technologies like CSS and JavaScript frameworks. The good news is that they don’t need to be downloaded and installed on devices, as with native and hybrid apps. 

Web apps never used to possess the features found in native apps, such as offline access and the ability to send push notifications, and businesses realized that this was a massive drawback to their return on investments. Owing to that, many developers have started building Progressive Web Apps.

Progressive Web Apps, PWAs

PWAs are web apps that mimic the functionality of native apps to a certain extent. They are built using modern and advanced APIs, thus enabling flexibility and features seen in native apps. The great news is that even an existing web app can be transformed into a PWA.

From this development, you will experience some advantages and disadvantages, such as;

Pros:

• Reliability. Experiencing a similar experience of native apps with an app you don’t need to install on your device and inexpensively.
• Responsive. Work with multiple devices across many networks. 
• Fast. Loads in less time than a website due to code minimization. 

 

Cons:

• Limited access to specific hardware components of devices such as Near-field Communications and NFCs.
• Offline access is not fully granted like in native apps
• It might not work fully with specific mobile devices

 

Examples of PWAs

• Pinterest. 
• Google Maps.
• Tinder. 
• Twitter Lite.
  
  

Which Option Should You Go With?

The chances are that you are reading this because you are looking for an app that will fit your enterprise offering. If that’s the case, you must consider a few things before choosing which to go for. They should include;

1. Your Business Objectives/Model

A business has numerous objectives—for instance, economic and social goals. If you are trying to impact your customers positively while still making a profit, you will need to go for an inexpensive and effective product. An excellent choice would be a PWA designed as a minimally viable Product, MVP.

2. Future Plans

A business needs to consider where it will be in several years before it designs a mobile app. This approach will help them develop a product they can scale with ease. A hybrid app should be your option since it allows cross-platform development.

3. Your Budget 

As we have seen, developing some mobile apps is expensive compared to others. And the more expensive the app, the harder it becomes for businesses willing to get quality apps for their enterprises. However, if you have an initial fixed budget, you can start with a web app that can be later improved to a PWA and still offer services comparable to native apps.

Summary 

To sum up, it’s worth pointing out that mobile apps will replace other software with time. This is true since mobile device usage has dominated the market. This dominance has forced the development of these apps on a large scale to meet the demand, thus the increased diversity. Earlier, there were only native apps that tech giants like Google and Apple developed. Spectacular native apps built from scratch were expensive, and the inclusion of the common frameworks on open source facilitated the burst of mobile app developers, providing you with a similar experience with multiple options under a reasonable budget.