Mobile applications are becoming big business and are being viewed as one of the most dynamic business tools. They have become the new standard for building up a connection with customers.
Analysts estimate that app-related revenues reached $25 billion last year, and are expected to be more than triple this year. App developers and the Apple and Google app stores aren’t the only ones profiting from this boom. A small but growing portion of app revenues comes from organizations making their data available through application programming interfaces—gateways that, among other things, enable third-party app developers to leverage a company’s aggregated data or selected services.
Apps are no longer only about software products, but every other service such as banking, car sharing or delivery of goods are bound to have mobile applications for both Android and iOS. Mobile applications enable companies to provide their users with convenient and up-to-date experience.
Business is driven by constant innovations, thus a lot of industries have been using mobile applications for at least 6-7 years. At present, some service businesses, like Uber that is one of the successful hybrid app examples, prefer mobile apps over websites. It helps improve retention by having the ability to interact with the customers directly and conveniently. Customers receive an increased level of accessibility such as push notifications, new payment options, etc.
There are certain features that are common to a great app:
- Feature-rich
- Fast to develop
- Developer-friendly
- Provide native-like experience to the app’s users
- Provide enough UI components to mix and match
However, in order to build an app that a customer would like and use, the developer must assess the framework against the pyramid of needs, and put together a personal hierarchy measuring the must-have vs nice-to-have features.
What is Hybrid Mobile App Development
The hybrid app development implies building and running an app across multiple platforms like iOS, Android, Windows, etc.
Hybrid mobile app development is getting increasingly popular with business owners as they are seeing multiple benefits of the technology. The cross platform mobile app development enables them to not only save time and cost, but also keep a track of the unique list of bugs and lighten the load of third party libraries. It is extremely convenient to adopt one dedicated technology approach as compared to having to juggle different technologies for different platforms.
Hybrid app can be built for any platform from a single code base.
What is Native App Development?
Native app development is done for a specific platform – like Android or iOS. Native apps are reliable and fast and perform very well. They are specially built to conform with certain pre-decided parameters. Native app development is done for individual platform, and for this reason they are extremely compatible and work smoothly on that platform. Native app development services are boutique services that provide users with functionalities that are supportive to the hardware. These apps are regularly updated through the app stores and are safe and secure. They can be easily downloaded. Some of these apps are configured to update themselves on their own and user is just sent a notification. They are reliable and make maximum use of the features available.
Native application is built using software development tools (SDK) for a certain software framework, hardware platform, or operating system.
Like Android app is built using Java Development Kit on Java platform, iOS app built using iOS SDK, Swift and Objective C. Similarly, .NET required for Windows platform.
Native app development and hybrid app development are both very popular but come with their own set of problems. Therefore, it is still important to consider whether your business needs a hybrid app development or a native app development.
Hybrid App Development vs Native App Development
Native apps are platform-specialised apps that are specifically built for a particular platform like Android or iOS. If a business already knows which platform its audience uses, or if it is convinced that it needs to have different features for customers using different platforms, then he should consider going in for native app development.
Hybrid apps are deployed on multiple platforms. They are built to be compatible with every platform where they are downloaded.
Native apps have the advantage of being faster, whereas hybrid apps have the advantage of getting built faster. Hybrid mobile app development definitely helps businesses save time and money, but native app development is known to provide customized experience for the app users.
Hybrid apps are built using web technologies like HTML, CSS and JavaScript whereas native apps built with specific technology and language for specific platform like Java for Android and Swift for iOS.
A cross platform hybrid mobile app development company has the advantage that it needs to build only one app which would run on every platform. However, in the case of native app, they need a specific code for each platform. A business should develop a hybrid mobile app if its main aim is to build the app in a timely manner and if the app is simple enough to run glitch-free on every platform. If the app is complex, and requires functionalities that vary with platform, native app development makes more sense.
There are pros and cons for both native app development as well as hybrid app development. The decision to choose between the two should be based on the company’s requirements and audience preferences. Use case, nature and environment of the application can also influences the decision.