Discover the three types of apps and their unique features. Explore web apps, mobile apps, and desktop apps and understand which type best suits your needs.
There are countless categories of mobile apps on the market: gaming, social, travel, productivity, utilities, shopping, lifestyle, education, health and fitness and many, many others. They have become so present in our daily lives that we rarely think about the mechanics and effort required to create them.
From a development perspective, applications can be divided into three types: native, hybrid and web applications. Building each type involves utilizing different skills and methodologies, and there are pros and cons associated with them.
Exploring Different Types of Apps
What is the right product for your business? Read on to learn about native, hybrid, and web apps and what each type of product can bring to your organization.
Native apps
Native apps are developed for specific operating systems on mobile devices. This means the app can run on either Android or Apple iOS devices, but not both. This is why many companies hire software developers who specialize in specific operating systems. Native applications can be developed with a wide variety of programming languages, from Java to Python and C++.
There are several advantages to native apps. The main benefit is performance. These apps are faster than hybrid apps and also more consistent. Furthermore, the user experience (UX) tends to be superior, as they use the device's user interface (UI). These apps can also access various features that come with the device itself, such as Bluetooth and GPS.
But native apps have their drawbacks. One reason why some companies avoid building them into hybrid apps is that if they want to reach a wide audience, including iOS and Android users, they will need to fully double their development and maintenance efforts.
There are some tools to help streamline these efforts, like the popular Facebook React Native framework, but the process will still require a lot more time and effort than hybrid development, and you won't be able to completely repurpose your code. This means that native mobile app development can get very expensive.
Native apps also require more storage space on user devices, especially when downloading updates released by the developer.
Hybrid apps
Instagram and Gmail are two extremely popular examples of hybrid apps. Technically, they are web apps, but they behave and act like native apps. They run in a web browser built into the application. Unlike native apps, however, hybrid apps can work across multiple platforms and operating systems.
The main advantage of choosing hybrid apps is that development is simplified as companies only need to build one version of the product. This also means that the development process is typically faster than native apps, as well as less expensive. Apps can also work offline and updates are easier to facilitate.
Hybrid apps can also serve as a minimum viable product (MVP) to demonstrate app capabilities before building a native app. Additionally, they are useful for users in countries with slow internet connections.
However, there are some major drawbacks to creating hybrid apps. For one, they tend to suffer in terms of performance compared to their native counterparts. They are typically slower and less reliable than native apps.
Additionally, the application may look and behave differently in terms of user experience and appearance from one operating system to another. Furthermore, and depending on the developers' skill set and experience, they may create an app that works better on Android than on iOS or vice versa, assuming they tend to favor one type of development.
Web Applications
Web applications run in a web browser. They are accessed on a mobile device and do not require a user to download. Typically, developers use traditional web development languages like HTML5, JavaScript, CSS, and others to create web applications.
As with hybrid apps, a big advantage of web apps is that they don't require multiple codebases or customization for unique operating systems. Therefore, the development time can be quite fast and the application creation will not be expensive. They also behave responsively, adapting to the UI of the specific device they are running on.
Meanwhile, web apps don't require a download, so they won't take up any storage space on your device, both in terms of the app itself and any maintenance updates.
Still, as with other types of apps, there are some drawbacks to web apps. The biggest disadvantage is that the application only depends on the browser to work. This means that if the browser's capabilities are limited, the application's capabilities will be limited as well. Additionally, browsers often have different features, so the user experience may vary between them.
Web apps also cannot work completely offline. They may have an offline mode, but their features will still be limited. For example, you won't be able to back up data without an Internet connection.
Which one should you choose?
So, what kind of app should your company develop? Ultimately, it comes down to your business priorities and goals.
If you want your app to be stable and high-performance, price isn't a concern, and you have a lot of time at your disposal, then a native app is probably your best option. Additionally, if this is your first foray into app production, you may find that you build a stronger reputation by delivering a fast, customizable, and stable app.
However, if you don't have enough time or a big budget, a hybrid or web app might be a better option. A web app generally requires less time to build, while a hybrid app can serve as an MVP – a “dress rehearsal” of sorts – if you want to dedicate more resources to developing a more complex app later.
Common questions
How important is user interface (UI) design and user experience (UX) in app development?
UI and UX design are crucial in app development as they directly affect user satisfaction, engagement, and retention. A well-designed app with an intuitive interface and seamless user experience can significantly improve usability and encourage longer usage times, positively affecting the success of the app.
Can hybrid apps be integrated with the device's hardware resources like native apps?
Hybrid apps can access device features such as camera, GPS, and accelerometer through plug-ins and APIs. However, this integration may not be as seamless or high-performance as with native apps, potentially leading to compromise user experience in some scenarios.
What is the role of application security in the development process?
Security is a primary concern in application development, especially for applications that handle sensitive user data or financial transactions. Ensuring data encryption, secure communication channels, and compliance with privacy regulations are essential steps to protecting user information and maintaining trust.
How does choosing between native, hybrid, and web apps affect app maintenance and updates?
Native apps may require more effort to update and maintain, as changes need to be made separately for each platform version. Hybrid and web applications, which benefit from a single code base, can be updated more easily, allowing for faster deployment of fixes and features across all platforms simultaneously.
What considerations should be made about application scalability when choosing the development approach?
Scalability should be considered both in terms of the ability to handle an increasing number of users and the ease of adding new features. Native apps offer robust performance scalability, but can require more time and resources to scale across different platforms. Hybrid and web apps offer easier scalability across platforms, but can face performance limitations as the number of users increases.
Source: BairesDev
