When a business decides to create a mobile application for the market or for use by its business users, it must make a lot of decisions to get the project started. One of the most important decisions is whether to develop the app using Native development tools or to take a Hybrid Mobile App Development approach.
In this article, we look at two reasons a business should choose the Hybrid Mobile Application Development approach to projects.
The Mobile App Developer Perspective
Whether you plan to use your internal IT team to develop your mobile app, or engage a mobile application development expert, you are likely to find that the development team has a preference (or certainly an opinion) on how to approach the project to ensure that it has the greatest likelihood of success. While your internal IT team may wish to participate in this effort, engaging an expert means you have the benefit of experience and skills across all tools and approaches – Native and Hybrid tools included. What developers will tell you is that taking the hybrid approach and using tools like MEAN, Angular JS and other cross-platform mobile app development tools.
When you talk to experienced developers, they will tell you that there is a trend toward cross-platform development and away from the native approach. Building, testing and maintaining code for two operating systems (OS) is expensive and time consuming.
Hybrid mobile applications support web technologies like JavaScript, HTML5, and CSS and they provide access to native platforms as well. When you design only for a native environment, you are satisfying one operating system and using tools developed for that platform so the solution is not as flexible.
And one last point to make regarding the developer community: If you choose the hybrid mobile app development approach, your business can leverage a larger developer community, so you will have the resources you need to design and develop the application and to upgrade, integrate and maintain the application for the long-term. The reason for that is simple. Native app developers are in the minority, so your business is likely to find it more difficult to staff a native mobile app development project. The majority of today’s skilled mobile app developers are cross-platform, hybrid developers who are trained to work across operating systems and devices and create a single code base.
The Mobile Application User Perspective
By taking the hybrid mobile application approach you can sell your app across the market, or provide an app to your business users and internal team members, no matter what type of device your users own or prefer. Some users may have an iOS at work and an Android at home, so a hybrid mobile app approach will allow users to access data and perform tasks, no matter which device they happen to be using at the time. Whether your clients, partners, suppliers or team members use one operating system more often than another, you can serve them today and, if they choose to purchase and use another operating system tomorrow, you can serve them in the future as well.
The one-code, hybrid mobile application approach allows your users to access your mobile application, perform tasks and view information and works equally well, no matter the size or resolution of the screen, the operating system or the type of device. Apple and Android devices are served equally and your app can reside in the Google Play or Apple App Store for easy user access. When it’s time to upgrade or update the mobile application, your users will find the process seamless. There will be no duplicate effort involved in the upgrade, in testing, or in getting the app upgrade to the user, so time to market will achieve better results for you and for your customers and users.
No matter the type of mobile application development project you conceive, a cross-platform mobile application, Hybrid Mobile App approach for iPhone, and Android allows you to build the best development team and to provide the best service to your customers. For more information about mobile application development, visit our Blog.
