With smartphones and tablets enjoying an unprecedented surge in popularity, mobile application development is accelerating. Writing software for compact, wireless computing devices is a step in the process. There is one significant distinction between it and the standard application development process: mobile application software is meant to make use of the specific features of a specific mobile device. For instance, programmers can create gaming software for the iPhone or a mobile health app that makes use of a certain smartwatch’s characteristics.
Various mobile app types
Desktop PC applications run on the bare minimum of hardware. Even though there are fewer hardware variations for mobile devices, the same is true for applications as well. However, since the hardware in mobile devices is not as powerful as that in laptops and PCs, it is made to work at its best. As a result, mobile apps may have some restrictions. For example, a gaming app may have fewer graphics features because the device only supports a specific amount of graphics processing.
For various devices, there are many solutions to these issues. Because of this, the code is specifically created using the hardware that a given device supports. On a larger scale, there are three main types of apps:
Native apps
These software programs were created specifically to work with a certain platform or device. It employs programming languages and tools tailored to such operating systems. The most recent technologies can be utilized, and native apps can operate at their peak performance. In this regard, it differs from web apps designed to be universal across multiple systems. Additionally, creating native applications might be more expensive than creating web apps because it takes more time and effort to create them for each device.
HTML Apps
are based on the “write once, run anywhere” principle. Since HTML5 is supported by the majority of current mobile devices, creating applications that run on numerous mobile platforms is significantly easier because just one piece of code needs to be created. With very minor adjustments necessary for each OS, HTML5 apps may be used on mobile, desktop, tablet, and notebook browsers. This is because they are based on the nearly universal standards of web technologies. In comparison to native programs, one major disadvantage of these apps is that they provide an average user experience that is compatible with all devices.
Hybrid mobile app
leverages the strengths of native programming and HTML5 mobile app development to create hybrid apps. The application’s core is written as an HTML5 mobile app in this case, and it is then embedded in a native container. This enables the app to render HTML5 and execute JavaScript locally using the browser engine of the native device. Because the app core is just built once, it can be utilized for multiple mobile platforms, cutting down on the amount of time needed for development.