Hybrid Mobile Apps: With digitization invading the market at such a fierce pace, it is no surprise that the survey shows, India is going to outdo US and be the second largest smartphone market in the world. And as the future holds, it is the right time for small and medium businesses to incorporate mobile applications into their system for accelerated business development in a small period of time. To ensemble the goods, services that the businesses have to offer, with mobile applications making easy accessibility is the kind of business growth hack that SMEs should look forward to.
Hybrid mobile application is the kind of application that works on various operating systems, be it Windows, Android, iOS, etc. What separates hybrid applications from other applications is the fact that they can access capabilities like camera, contacts, accelerometer for smoothing the performance of the application itself. The major benefit of hybrid mobile application is that, in this arena of millions of users, each for different operating system, it is not humanly possible to create applications for each of the operating systems; hence hybrid application come into the scene, where it works on multiple platforms, but can be managed from one place.
The benefits of hybrid mobile applications are as follows:
Cost effective – Hybrid Mobile Apps
Since the application works on multiple mediums and is made once with the code, it improves the tendency of application development and reduces its maintenance cost. So, when the application needs to be upgraded, it may just be modified, instead of modifying all the devices / platforms it works on.
Resource availability
As it works best on JavaScript and HTML, any web developer can develop a hybrid app with little training about it.
Hybrid Mobile Apps – Speed
It works faster than any native app, and to the best of our surprise, it is fairly faster than any mobile app. The speed of the app is faster, unless there are large graphics requiring network connectivity, which slows down the app in return.
Offline use
Hybrid apps use device’s API to store offline data. And hence, it proves to be of great help to users who have comparatively poor network connectivity or are keeping a check on their network usage.
User experience
Like websites that look absolutely different with browsers they are opened in, hybrid apps have the similar facility, which in turn proves to be of good branding and satisfied user experience.
Some of the popular frameworks used for developing hybrid apps are:
1. jQuery Mobile
It’s a mobile development framework that supports the functions of the application on variety of operating systems and ensures smooth running of the apps.
2. PhoneGap
This tool does not need a native programming language in order to frame an application. It compiles the app in the platform’s SDK and gets ready to install itself on the platform it supports.
3. Xamarin
This popular framework is known for accelerating the speed of the applications, delivering a native platform and code development.
4. Titanium Appcelerator
Known as one of the powerful frameworks that uses JavaScript approach and converts them to native code.
5. IONIC
It incorporates and creates a library of operating systems that assist in creation of interactive apps.
6. Onsen UI
It uses a variety of components to create apps for variety of platforms.
7. Framework 7
With no external dependencies, it still manages to give a native feel to the apps, with proper application of components and animation.
8. Sencha Touch
They have built-in MVC system, themes and a broad range of products to build and design effective hybrid apps.
9. React Native
They build proper native apps and hybrid ones employing JavaScript and React.
The future of the hybrid mobile applications hold a deep rooted involvement into business development and progress in the world of digital frenzy. Being one of the fastest growing apps in the Mobility space, it is predicted that hybrid apps will take over the market of native apps in the not-so-distant future.
