Hybrid Mobile App Development: Exploring the Bright Side of It

In the fourth quarter of 2016, around 352 million units of Android smartphones and 77 million units of iOS smartphones were sold.

Talking about the popularity of smartphones, need we say more?

However, these are not just the numbers. If you see yourself as a smartphone user, you would just relate yourself with any one of these categories and that’s it! But these growing numbers are doing much more than that.

With an increased amount of smartphones, there is a tremendous increase in the demand and usage of the mobile apps and thus, in turn, it calls for a great boost in the mobile app development industry.

And this pushes the mobile app developersto achieve more and more sophistication and expertise in their domain.

The Growing Spheres of Mobile App Development

Now, for the mobile app developers, it is not easy to just pick one mobile app development technology and go with it. It’s a whole lot of difficult task.

There is an abundance of mobile app development platforms available for different types of apps and so, making a choice gets more difficult.

If you’re a professional mobile app developer, with a specialization in a particular area, say Xamarin mobile application development, life is easy for you! You will just grab and work on the business opportunities that suit your domain.

However, if you’re a developer with multiple specialties, or a person pursuing mobile app development as a fresh career, or a business owner looking for the suitable platform for their mobile app, you’re a little bit in trouble!

I feel your pain when it’s about choosing the suitable app type and then a suitable development framework for that app. So, what I’ll do here is help you decide on the same. Let’s have a quick look at the options that you have:

Native Mobile Apps: The thing about native apps is that they are platform-specific. This means if the app is created for Android, it won’t work on iOS and vice versa. And this is a problem for people looking for a one-size-fits-all kind of apps. The mobile app development services offered by experts in native app development, revolve around the expertise in Swift, Java, Objective-C, etc. The native apps require specialized expertise, take a longer time of development, and are comparatively high-priced.

Hybrid Mobile Apps: How the experts define hybrid apps is websites packed within a native wrapper. The hybrid apps usually have the looks and feel of a native app, but when it comes to the UI, controls, and navigation, they are powered by the website of the business and are a lot more versatile than the native apps. The hybrid application development for mobile requires an expertise in HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS3. As the hybrid mobile apps are wrapped in the native wrappers, the wrapper technology being used is in the form of different hybrid mobile application frameworks like Xamarin, Ionic, PhoneGap, etc.

From among both these types of apps, it is usually recommended to use the Hybrid mobile app development if you seek a flexible development environment with fast results. Let’s see why.

Why choose Hybrid Mobile App Development?

Choosing the hybrid mobile app development over native might have a lot of reasons. When it comes to comparing both the kinds of apps and then choosing the hybrid one, you have some valid judgment points:

1.  Multi-Platform Support

It’s a no brainer. Anyone would want their apps to be supported by different platforms like Android, iOS, etc. If you don’t think differently, you must go for Hybrid mobile app development services.

The hybrid apps can be easily ported to a number of platforms. For different platforms, you needn’t create a different app but a different native wrapper. This wrapper can be created by the competent PhoneGap or Xamarin app development company available around you.

With rich features of the HTML5, the hybrid apps are well supported by the latest devices and browsers. However, the apps aren’t much compatible with the old versions of browsers or platforms. But for this, a hybrid app trims its features for low-end devices with the help of device detection.

2. Cost-Effective And Fast

One hybrid app can be compatible with all the available platforms. Thus, there is no need to create separate apps for separate platforms, as is the case with the native apps.

If you pick the native mobile app development, your mobile app developer will have to develop different apps for different platforms but with the hybrid apps, only the native wrapper is to be changed.

Thus, as compared to the hybrid apps, it takes twice the efforts for the native app developer to create an app for iOS as well as Android. And thus, twice the cost and time!

So, hybrid apps are comparatively more cost-effective and their development is much faster than the native apps.

3.  High-Security

The hybrid applications use the https protocol and are exposed over the web. Thus, the sensitive data of a user is not stored on the device. With this, the security quotient of your mobile app increases.

In a hybrid app, the data is secured from any sorts of theft and is prevented from being exposed to malware, phishers, or hackers that can harm the app and data through the device of a user.

The high levels of security offered by the hybrid apps make them the best choice of experts delivering mobile app development services.

Because of these three major features, the hybrid application development for mobile is often prioritized over the native mobile app development, in most cases.

However, in terms of aspects like UI, offline support, etc. native apps can turn out to be a better option. So, if you’re looking for quality apps with more cost and more time of development you can choose the native apps. If you want fast, more secure, diverse and cheaper apps, hybrid is your answer!

Choosing the Framework: Xamarin VS PhoneGap VS Ionic

Now that you’ve decided on developing Hybrid apps, we should have a look at the different frameworks available for the hybrid application development for mobile. Out of these three most popular Hybrid App Development Frameworks, you can pick the best one and start with your mobile app development work.

1.  XAMARIN

Overview:

Owned by Microsoft, Xamarin is a mono mobile app development framework. The framework was launched in the year 2011 and is used for the development of cross-platforms apps, that is, the hybrid apps as well as the native apps.

For expert services delivered in Xamarin development, you can hire Xamarin developers, for your mobile app development. The framework uses the C# programming language that runs on the .NET CLI (Common Language Infrastructure).

The Xamarin framework is used to interact with the APIs (Application Program Interface) of the mobile functions like GPS, Camera, Contacts, etc. The Xamarin framework entirely uses the native libraries of the iOS as well as Android operating systems.

For using Xamarin as your framework for hybrid mobile app development, you can look for the best Xamarin development company around you.

Benefits of Xamarin:

Below is a list of benefits that you can seek from the Xamarin mobile app development framework:

• When developed with Xamarin, the cross-platform or hybrid apps get all the features of the native apps. This is because the Xamarin developers can write a shared C# codebase to develop the native apps for iOS, Android, and Windows. This code can be shared across a number of platforms, making Xamarin an efficient cross-platform app development framework.
• The platform is considered as a great native wrapper and uses the .NET layers along with C#. Thus, helping the developers create the mobile apps that are highly customizable for a number of third party libraries that are written for iOS and Android.
• Xamarin is very easy to learn, especially for a mobile app developer who already specializes in C#.
• With the help of Xamarin TestCloud, the apps developed by your Xamarin development company is automatically tested.

See Also: 5 Reasons Why Developers Prefer Xamarin for Cross Platform Mobile Application Development

2.  PhoneGap

Overview:

Owned by the Adobe System, PhoneGap is considered as one of the best app development frameworks for the cross-platform or hybrid apps. For using PhoneGap, your mobile app development company or developers need to be specialized in the programming languages like JavaScript. HTML, CSS, etc.

An open source app development framework, PhoneGap is known by its other name “ Apache Cordova or just Cordova. The framework lets the mobile app developers create apps with an FFI (Foreign Function Interface).

PhoneGap ensures a great experience of hybrid mobile app development for the creation of high-quality mobile apps for multiple platforms like iOS, Android, Windows, etc.

Benefits of PhoneGap:

• The mobile app developers can put their hands on the best PhoneGap features, modules, and components for free! This is because PhoneGap is an open source mobile app development framework with a huge community support. Thus, you get the best and the latest components and features for your new mobile app development project, for free!
• With PhoneGap, the mobile app developers can easily create their exclusive hybrid apps within a very less time. This is because PhoneGap comes with a strong backend system that escalates the mobile app development process by cutting down the efforts of your mobile app developer.
• PhoneGap mobile app development helps the developers to maintain a uniformity of mobile apps across multiple platforms. For instance, earlier many enterprises faced an issue of their iOS and Android apps behaving and looking dissimilar. The issue is completely eradicated by the PhoneGap mobile app development framework.

3.  Ionic

Overview:

Built on top of the frameworks like Apache Cordova and Angular JS, Ionic is an open source mobile app development framework for hybrid mobile apps. For delivering the best mobile app development services using the Ionic framework, a developer must be specialized in HTML5, CSS, Sass, etc.

Benefits of Ionic:

• With the Ionic framework, you can create a single source code for your mobile application and it will be supported by different platforms. In other words, the Ionic framework acts as a single source of mobile app development for all the supported platforms like android, iOS, OSX, etc.
• If you’re an experienced developer then working with the Ionic framework comes in handy as the framework basically uses HTML, JavaScript, and CSS coding for app development. An experienced mobile app developer is often well-acquainted with these languages and so, app development with Ionic framework is nothing but a breeze.
• Being an open source framework, Ionic comes with a great number of plugins that are easily available. These plugins are usually high-quality and very versatile, making your work as a mobile app developer, quite easy!
• Ionic is built on AngularJS and is known as an expansion of this framework. So, with Ionic, you can get a chance to utilize the competent framework of AngularJS as it is already embedded within the Ionic framework by default.

All in all, the three of these mobile app development frameworks are the brilliant ones in their own respective ways. This is the reason why all of these are used most widely in the world of development by even the most competent experts delivering mobile app development services.

As per the suitability of your hybrid app and the idea behind it, you can pick the framework that suits you the most. If you’re not a developer yourself, you can hire Xamarin developers, PhoneGap developers, or the Ionic developers after choosing the suitable framework for your apps.

Conclusion

To conclude, it can be said that the industry of mobile development is excelling at a very fast pace these days. For the mobile app developers, it has become mandatory to stay in touch with the latest mobile app development trends, keeping the latest technology abreast.

Out of the Native or Hybrid mobile applications, the hybrid apps are best suited for the developers looking for flexibility, ease of development, lesser cost, and a faster rollout to the market. There is no denying the fact that Native apps have their own sophistication and credibility, but in most cases, the hybrid apps are the best fit.

There are a number of frameworks available for the hybrid mobile app development and these can be compared and evaluated before picking the best one!