Marketing has changed drastically over the past few decades as technology has changed. Now, more businesses than ever use websites and applications to market their businesses and keep users engaged. This is far removed from traditional mediums like televisions and magazines. Mobile apps are perhaps the best way to keep your customers and users engaged. When you consider that an average adult, who is usually the target customer for most businesses, spends an average of 4 hours looking at their mobile phone per day, it becomes easy to see why having an app is vital for your business.
There Are Many Different Approaches
If you need a new enterprise app for your business, a great read or two, or a simple online search will reveal that there are a lot of options available to you and your business. All these options are different, with each having its pros and cons. These options are native, hybrid, and web apps.
Once you learn of these options, the question you should ask is, “Native, Hybrid or Web: What’s Perfect For You?“. Talking to a company like Appetiser that specialises in mobile app development should help you understand the differences and what options are available to you. Appetiser is an Australian-based mobile development company that develops all kinds of mobile applications. Having worked with some of the biggest companies in the world, they are best placed to give you the best answers as well as develop the perfect mobile app for you.
Native Apps
These are the most common type of mobile application and if you own a smartphone, you already have lots of them on there. These apps are built for specific platforms like Android or iOS. They are also written in the programming languages their platforms understand and support.
Native apps are the best option for most people because they integrate tightly with the platforms they are built for and can leverage all the features of the devices they are installed on.
One of their biggest advantages is that they provide enhanced app performance due to the reason outlined above. They are also quick, secure, and simple to use for most users. Native apps also receive a lot of support from app stores and the overall app ecosystem. Native apps are fantastic for businesses because they are easily discoverable when they are uploaded to the marketplace.
Native apps also provide superior user experience compared to web or hybrid mobile apps.
Mobile Web Apps
A website runs on a browser like Chrome or Safari, but web apps run in a browser and do not need to be downloaded or installed. They are essentially condensed versions of the websites they are built for and do not take up any space on the user’s device.
They are written in web development languages like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. They are easier to develop than native apps because if you have the necessary web development skills, you can create them yourself. They are also cheaper to develop than native apps.
Perhaps their biggest advantage is that they can be run on any platform, Android or iOS, as long as the user has a web browser installed. This makes their development faster as developers do not have to code for all the different platforms their apps will be used on.
Hybrid Apps
Hybrid mobile apps are essentially a mix of native and web apps. They are built using web technologies including HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Good examples of these apps include Yelp and Instagram.
Even though hybrid apps can be downloaded from the app store, they are essentially web apps that are wrapped in what is known as a WebView. They include the backend code that is written as outlined above and the native shell that holds and loads the WebView when the app is opened.
Hybrid apps have cross-platform support which gives them a bigger reach. They are also easier to develop than native apps which makes them cheaper too. Hybrid apps can also work offline, syncing the necessary data when the devices get connected to the internet.
You might want to stay away from hybrid apps because their user experience is usually much worse than that of the other types of apps. These apps are also usually slower than native apps.
Progressive Web Applications
Progressive web apps are a sub-set of hybrid apps as they are also hybrids of regular web pages and native apps. They can take advantage of a device’s capabilities to offer functionalities such as vibrations, use of the camera, location services and push notifications.
Choosing between the different types of mobile apps will determine the budget you set aside for the app’s development as well as the amount of time it takes to have the app developed. The type of app you choose will also affect the user experience, which can have a negative or positive effect on how people perceive your business.