Native vs. Hybrid Mobile App Dev? A Toss-Up or a Hands-Down Decision?
Your business may be planning a mobile application for business users or perhaps you plan to launch a mobile app in the consumer market. Whatever your plan, you will have to decide whether to design and develop your mobile application using a native approach or a hybrid mobile application approach for cross-platform mobile app compliance. If you are facing this decision, you should first consider how broadly your application may be used by your target audience and decide which approach will work best for your business needs and for future upgrades and expansion into the market or to accommodate shifts in user expectations and market changes.
Native Mobile App Development – In this scenario, your development partner will create code for either Android or iOS, and leverage the features and functionality that particular operating system provides. In today’s development environs, these types of apps are usually designed when a business has a user base that is limited to a particular type of device. For example, your business users may all have an Android device provided by the business to access business applications so, if you are developing a new business app to be used for workflow, approvals, etc., you might wish to develop only for the Android environment. If you have a choice between iOS and Android and you wish to choose one, you may wish to know that 40% of developers surveyed in 2020 preferred to work in the Apple iOS environment as compared to 30% preference for Android.
Hybrid Mobile App Development – AKA Cross-Platform Mobile Application Development – This approach is rapidly evolving and if your business is about to undertake a mobile application development project, it is likely your IT consultant or in-house development team will recommend a cross-platform mobile application development approach in order to ensure optimization of the project investment and ensure a successful implementation. Projects that are designed using a hybrid approach can accommodate both Android and iOS devices, so your users do not need to choose between devices. If your business user has an Android device at work and an iOS personal device, that user can use your app on either device. For projects that are meant to address the consumer market, a cross-platform approach will ensure that you can expand your market reach by accommodating both types of devices.
In order to effectively address your Mobile Application Development needs, you should engage an expert that can assess your requirements, the domain and market, make appropriate recommendations and design a mobile application that will serve your users now and in the future.
