Pros and Cons of Native and Hybrid Mobile App Development

In this article we have describe the pros and cons of choosing Mobile app development option between Native apps and Hybrid apps.

In previous article about options of Mobile App Development we have narrated the basic understanding and differences of Native and Hybrid Mobile App Development as options.

In this article, we have listed the specific pros and cons of both the available options. Hope it helps.

Native app

Native apps are developed for one type of device, and then installed directly onto that device, usually from an online app marketplace.

Pros

• A native mobile app can produce the best user experience: fast graphics API and fluid animation, which is a very big deal when you’re using a lot of data or require a fast refresh.
• Obviously you can also get full control over what you are making. It’s easy for you to use camera, address book, geolocation and all other native features.
• A native mobile app usually developed by IDEs which can provide a full tools environment including building debugging, project management, version control, and other tools professional developers need.
• Native apps have the ability to work with a device’s built-in features, often making them faster and easier to work with on a device. Having an app fully integrated with a device can be extremely helpful.
• Each native app must get the approval of the app store, so the security and performance of the app is generally assured. Because native apps are associated with an app store, they also are easy for a user to find and download.

Cons

• Perhaps the biggest weakness of native apps is their lack of portability to other platforms.
• Native apps often cost more to develop and distribute because of the distinct language and tooling ecosystems, which require more investment in developer skills if you need to develop for more than one platform.
• Native apps tend to be more expensive to the developer. The costs associated with maintenance and updates are higher, especially if the app is compatible with more than one type of device.
• While the app store can be beneficial to a developer, the process involved with approving an app can be arduous, and success is not guaranteed.

Hybrid app

Mobile hybrid apps are very similar to web applications, but they give you much greater access to different platform capabilities. For instance, on iPhone, your app can have access to the user’s address book, GPS, and many other features.

Pros

• Many developers prefer hybrid applications over native applications because the development process is very similar to that of building a website. This is because JavaScript and HTML are typically used, amongst other familiar building blocks.
• Quicker development, especially for a long time experienced web developer.
• Ionic can offer a good full angularJS environment and works well with cordova plugin which means we can use some native capabilities like iOS native tab bar or Android native tab bar and so much more.
• Most hybrid tools can enable portability of a single codebase to the major mobile platforms.
• UI frameworks can achieve a fairly native look.
• Speaking of HTML, when it comes to the features that you want on your apps, hybrid is often a great choice because using HTML allows for very few limitations. This means you can have an app that is very rich in features, feel and animation.
• If your company has a BYOD policy, hybrid applications are typically a great option for you, as they are multi-platform. This means that you can use the app on a variety of different devices.

Cons

• Because developing a hybrid app is very similar to developing a website, many developers make the mistake of simply copying their web applications to mobile without any kind of redesign. However, this can result in a number of problems, such as a slowdown in page load time, or non-optimized components that aren’t made for mobile.
• One of the earliest concerns of early hybrid apps was performance. While a number of performance issues have been fixed over time, there are a number of framework methods and specific architecture fixes (typically a framework like JQuery Mobile) that can make a hybrid app perform more like a native app.
• Mobile phones (even today’s tablets) are not fast enough to smoothly run a hybrid app. Android platform is a nightmare, page transitions don’t work smoothly not to mention lacking CSS/CSS3 implementation. IOS fares better but still has a lacking CSS3 implementation.
• Not all device APIs can be accessed.

 

Conclusion:

 

We’ve outlined some broad advantages and disadvantages of the major app types, but it’s up to you to decide which you can live with, and which you can live without. It’s easy to read lists like this and determine that a native app is always the best option, but if you’re creating a simple program, and/or working with a small budget, a hybrid or web app might be your best bet.

No matter which method you choose, you can launch a successful app if you put the right amount of time, effort, and money into its development. And of course, a little luck doesn’t hurt.

 

Hybrid Mobile Apps vs. Native Mobile Apps

If you are thinking of developing for the mobile application market, an important decision is to decide between developing a native application or a hybrid one. Choosing to use native or hybrid Mobile Application is always the pain for everyone who wants to make their mobile apps.

Image: Native Vs Hybrid Vs HTML app

From our experience working with Mobile App Development we have made following comparison.

Native apps are specific to a given mobile platform (iOS or Android) using the development tools and language that the respective platform supports (e.g., Xcode and Objective-C with iOS, Eclipse and Java with Android). Native apps look and perform the best.

HTML5 apps use standard web technologies—typically HTML5, JavaScript and CSS. This write-once-run-anywhere approach to mobile development creates cross-platform mobile applications that work on multiple devices. While developers can create sophisticated apps with HTML5 and JavaScript alone, some vital limitations remain at the time of this writing, specifically session management, secure offline storage, and access to native device functionality (camera, calendar, geolocation, etc.)

Hybrid apps are specific to a used lonic framework which include AngularJS and Cordova plugins, make it possible to embed HTML5 apps inside a thin native container, combining the best (and worst) elements of native and HTML5 apps.

Each option has it’s own pros and cons. Based on project requirement and matching the platform competencies you can take decision. Following are the detailed information about each option which will give you better ideas about what to expect from Native or Hybrid platforms for mobile app development.

Native mobile app:

   

In a nutshell, native apps provide the best usability, the best features, and the best overall mobile experience. Both, with iPhone App or Android App There are some things you only get with native apps:

Additional Device Accesses : Multi touch: - double taps, pinch-spread, and other compound UI gestures

Fast graphics API: the native platform gives you the fastest graphics, which may not be a big deal if you’re showing a static screen with only a few elements, or a very big deal if you’re using a lot of data and require a fast refresh.

Fluid animation: related to the fast graphics API is the ability to have fluid animation. This is especially important in gaming, highly interactive reporting, or intensely computational algorithms for transforming photos and sounds.

Built-in components : The camera, address book, geolocation, and other features native to the device can be seamlessly integrated into mobile apps. Another important built-in components is encrypted storage, but more about that later.

Ease of use : The native platform is what people are accustomed to, and so when you add that familiarity with all of the native features they expect, you have an app that’s just plain easier to use.

Documentation : There are over 2500 books alone for iOS and Android development, with many more articles, blog posts, and detailed technical threads on sites like StackOverflow.

Native apps are usually developed using an integrated development environment (IDE). IDEs provide tools for building debugging, project management, version control, and other tools professional developers need. While iOS and Android apps are developed using different IDEs and languages, there’s a lot of parity in the development environments, and there’s not much reason to delve into the differences. Simply put, you use the tools required by the device.

You need these tools because native apps are more difficult to develop. Likewise, the level of experience required is higher than other development scenarios, you don’t just cut and paste Objective-C and expect it to work. Indeed, the technological know-how of your development team is an important consideration. If you’re a professional developer, you don’t have to be sold on proven APIs and frameworks, painless special effects through established components, or the benefits of having your code all in one place. Let’s face it, today a skilled native iOS or Android developer is a rock star, and can make rock star demands.

While we’ve touched on native apps from a development perspective, there’s also the more important perspective: the end user. When you’re looking for an app, you’ll find it in the store. When you start the app, it fires up immediately. When you use the app, you get fast performance, consistent platform look and feel. When your app needs an update, it tells you so. Native apps give you everything you’d expect from the company that built your device, as if it were simply meant to be.

Hybrid Mobile App:

Hybrid development combines the best (or worst) of both the native and HTML5 worlds. We define hybrid as a web app, primarily built using HTML5 and JavaScript, that is then wrapped inside a thin native container that provides access to native platform features. PhoneGap is an example of the most popular container for creating hybrid mobile apps.

For the most part, hybrid apps provide the best of both worlds. Existing web developers that have become gurus at optimizing JavaScript, pushing CSS to create beautiful layouts, and writing compliant HTML code that works on any platform can now create sophisticated mobile applications that don’t sacrifice the cool native capabilities. In certain circumstances, native developers can write plugins for tasks like image processing, but in cases like this, the devil is in the details.

On iOS, the embedded web browser or the UIWebView is not identical to the Safari browser. While the differences are minor, they can cause debugging headaches. That’s why it pays off to invest in popular frameworks that have addressed all of the limitations.

You know that native apps are installed on the device, while HTML5 apps reside on a Web server, so you might be wondering if hybrid apps store their files on the device or on a server? Yes. In fact there are two ways to implement a hybrid app.

Local - You can package HTML and JavaScript code inside the mobile application binary, in a manner similar to the structure of a native application. In this scenario you use REST APIs to move data back and forth between the device and the cloud.

Server - Alternatively you can implement the full web application from the server (with optional caching for better performance), simply using the container as a thin shell over the UIWebview.

Netflix has a really cool app that uses the same code base for running the UI on all devices: tablets, phones, smart TVs, DVD players, refrigerators, and cars. While most people have no idea, nor care, how the app is implemented, you’ll be interested to know they can change the interface on the fly or conduct A/B testing to determine the optimal user interactions. The guts of decoding and streaming videos are delegated to the native layer for best performance, so it’s a fast, seemingly native app, that really does provide the best of both worlds.

Conclusion:

Device feature : Native app is definitely better if you need device features like camera, notification and gesture etc. • Native app is better if you want your app to work when there is no connectivity. Although In-browser caching is available but it is limited. • Speed: Native is better in speed. • Maintenance: Multiple native code maintenance difficult more complex and expensive method. Hybrid is easier to manage.

Platform independence : If platform independence is important then you should go with Hybrid/HTML5 over native. • User Interface: If you want user experience to be consistent with the platform then native is better option. This does not mean that HTML5/Hybrid cannot have good UI. But native app will make more like actual platform.