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Choosing the right mobile app approach can be difficult. Trying to weigh strengths and weaknesses can be difficult. Should you choose Hybrid? Native? Or Cross platform? Or what do these terms mean? Nowadays, many top mobile app design & development companies in India and US are reaping benefits of mobile apps to rule in the online world.

A little thought and reflection in advance can really help you later, hope this post will help you!

What we will Cover: 

What is the difference between hybrid / Cross Platform native and fully native?
Decisive factors for your choice
Option 1: Choosing the Hybrid Mobile App (Cross Platform)
Option 2: Choosing the native mobile application (Cross Platform)
Option 3: All-Native Choices (platform-specific)
Conclusion

What is the Difference Between Hybrid and Cross Platform Native App Development? 

In order to obtain a high level view of A Hybrid Cross Platform development framework is a set of development, configuration, and construction tools that allow standard web technologies (HTML 5, CSS 3, and Javascript) to be packaged and deployed on a mobile device. Typically, the assets will be uploaded to the Apple Store for iOS or the Play Store for Android. At run time, the app uses the browser on the mobile device (webview).

A Native Cross Platform development framework offers the same approach as the hybrid approach. However, it cuts HTML and CSS out of the equation and allows the bundled application to speak directly to the mobile operating system. This offers two advantages over hybrid. First, applications can use native UI controls (rather than imitations), which makes it easier to develop because devices are consistent and applications run faster (because there is less processing to do) .

An entirely native approach uses the original Apple and Google tools to specifically target the mobile device. They are developed autonomously and use different languages ??and development environments in each context.

Deciding Factor For Your Choice 

There are 4 main points to consider when choosing your mobile development platform.

1. Speed considerations
2. Feature Support
3. Frame risk
4. Development cost

Speed considerations:

The first thing you need to think about is how fast the application should be. The fastest execution usually comes from real native applications written in Java (Android) and Swift (IOS). Next closely; then native cross platform and finally hybrid. It should be noted that the difference in speed can be trivial for the majority of applications and can only be important if you develop games. The golden figure for speed when it comes to mobile application development is 60fps. Nothing less; and for the eyes, it will look "laggy". Usually, hybrid choices do not reach this golden figure.

Feature Support

If you are creating cross-platform applications, there may be device-specific features that are not yet supported by the hybrid and cross-platform frameworks. Generally as time progresses, the functionality of these frameworks will be added but there will be a delay.

Frame Risk

By choosing to make purchases outside the officially supported mobile development frameworks (Android Studio / XCode), you introduce a little more risk since you put more layers of abstraction between the target platform and the code that execute on it. This may not be a problem, but it's worth looking at the support contracts offered by infrastructure developers Hybrid or Cross Platform. Try to search online and look for problems that people have had with executives before proceeding and making your choice.

Development Cost

It's worth thinking about the development expertise you already have in-house or that you can easily access externally. If you already have a lot of web developers, the Hybrid options offer the opportunity to save because they need less time to learn.

The use of a multiplatform code is useful for enabling code sharing and thus significantly reducing the cost of development.

Option 1: Choosing the Hybrid App Choices (Cross Platform) 

There are tons of players in this space. But those who come back many times are Cordova's family of executives.

Apache Cordova

Simply put, Apache Cordova is a command line-driven development framework, it includes build tools that will take input from (HTML, CSS and Javascript) and produce something that works on a mobile device. For example; a developer will write a command in Windows or OSX that tells a build tool to package our application:

And presto, we have a mobile app! Clearly it's incredibly simple because almost no immediate knowledge is needed on mobiles specifically to get started, here lies the beauty of a web wrapper.

Phonegap (Built on Cordova)

Phonegap is a development framework created by Adobe and based on Apache Cordova. A good analogy here is that it's like an operating system that runs on a host machine (Cordova). The reason it exists is because Adobe did it originally (although they delivered the license to Apache). The main advantage is its integration with the Adobe universe. For example, Adobe offers building tools that run in the cloud.

Ionic (Built on Cordoba)

Ionic is another frame that is built directly on Apache Cordova. Ionics forte is that it integrates with the well-known single-page application framework called Angular. Ionic is open source. This means that the focus is on the product itself (as opposed to the services offered around, such as with Phonegap). Recently Ionic has improved its offer to include a native version too!

Option 2: Cross Platform Native 

These tools allow a single language to target multiple platforms. If you develop high performance games with a lot of fully native processing is usually the way to go. But if you create common business applications, cross-platform can offer significant savings. There are some major types of cross-platform choices.

React Native

React.js is an open source Open Source Application (SPA) framework that allows web developers to create large-scale JavaScript applications for the browser. It composes common application requirements (such as rendering views) into a single framework that can be used for productivity. React Native is a reaction extension that removes browser-specific features and introduces mobile-specific knowledge. Facebook are the main contributors to this project.

Supported Devices: iOS, Android

Angular 2 Nativescript

The latest version of the most popular SPA Angular 2 has integrated the support of Teleriks Nativescript. Although developed by Telerik, Nativescript is open source. It allows development to target mobile devices using JavaScript or Typescript. The advantage is that Angular 2 is a very mature platform with many developers who understand it.

Supported Devices: iOS, Android

Xamarin

Xamarin uses C# to target multiple devices. It comes with a powerful integrated development environment (IDE) and will work well with Microsoft Visual Studio (via an extension). It's a good choice for large companies that have a lot of Microsoft developers in-house, and it also supports Windows Phone!

Supported Devices: iOS, Android, Windows

Option 3: Fully Native 

From the point of view of speed and interoperability, this choice presents the least risk. However, since there is no code share, it also has the highest potential cost.

Swift / Objective C (iOS)

Objective C has been the dominant language to develop for iOS for many years. It has a lot of support on the devices in terms of libraries and for the moment the majority of the applications are written there. Swift appeared in 2014 and replaced the C lens for iOS devices. Development using both languages ??is done using OSX using XCode.

Supported Devices: iOS

Java (Android)

Java can be developed using Android Studio to target Google's Android operating system. It provides a very good development experience and good tools and support.

Supported Devices: Android

Windows Phone

You can use C# or Visual Basic with Microsoft-specific tools to create Windows Phone applications. It would probably be best to use Xamarin in this case, so you have the option to reuse the code later on the line.

Conclusion 

In this post, we hope to have covered enough information so that you can be ready when people start talking about mobile. We looked at the versions of Web wrapper (hybrid) that are simply web code that is bundled. And we looked at cross-platform solutions that allow us to write in any language, but produce a true native application. We also consider native native up where applications are written in language intended by phone manufacturers (Java and Swift).

We have seen that in some cases where games are needed, a normal native may be needed but for the majority of cases, the cross platform will be the best solution since it offers a writing approach once deployed anywhere!

If you have any query related to hybrid mobile app design and development, you can contact us. We are one of the leading mobile app design and development company in Delhi/NCR. We provide end to end mobile app development services.