Namit Jaitly
Mobile apps are being considered the future of business. With large percentage of population having access to the internet and mobile phones, it has become fairly obvious that companies with mobile applications and website have a wider customer reach and large scale of business to operate on. However, Mobile apps are also considered necessary if you starting an online business having a website alone will not cut it. Generation of today like things happening within a snap of their fingers, website may often take more time than mobile apps, which is way it is crucial for the survival and the growth of business to have mobile apps for your business and make sure that they are available to all over the world wherever the targeted audience is.
Now comes the question deciding what type of mobile app is best suited for your business based on the business type, and other factors. To make sure you pick the most suitable business you need to know about the different types of mobile apps available. If you learn about them successfully you can pick the most preferred and the most suitable app that will help you run your business smoothly and without any trouble.
There are three types of mobile apps:
- Progressive Web Applications (PWA)
- Native Mobile Applications
- Hybrid Mobile Applications
Progressive Web Applications (PWA)
PWA is one of the most common terms you may encounter while deciding a mobile app for your business or consulting an expert for what app to use.
What is PWA?
PWA is a software app based on the web that will install on your system. In nutshell, PWA is actually a web app but looks similar to normal (native) mobile apps.
Connectivity type
All web apps need internet connectivity to use it. The advantage of PWA is every PWA app will work on both online and offline mode. So, you can deliver your mobile app with offline and online mode accessibility to your customers with the help of this PWA development.
Requirements for PWA
- Programming languages to be known: HTML, CSS, JavaScript
- Frameworks used: Angular, React, Ionic, etc.,
- Famous PWA apps: OLX, BookMyShow, Pinterest, etc., are some of the real-time Progressive Web Apps.
The rise of PWA’s has highlighted the importance of making websites and apps correctly to perform on mobile, and to an extent has pointed out how bloated and slow websites have become. Internet performance is all about speed – the smaller the size the quicker the download.
Native Mobile Applications
What are Native Mobile Applications
Native Mobile apps are the ones that can be downloaded in your from google play store or Apple store.
Type/Example
Native mobile app development is the process of developing applications that are designed specifically for particular devices. For instance, Instagram is a native mobile app where its mobile app functions are different from Instagram that are accessed in web browsers (to say, we can directly upload images to mobile Instagram, which is not possible directly on web apps).
Requirements
- Programming Languages Needed:
For Android, Java, and Kotlin are the best.
For iOS, Objective C and Swift are used.
- Frameworks used for Native Apps:
For Android apps, Ionic, Xamarin, etc., can be used.
For iOS apps, React Native, Ionic, Flutter, Xamarin, etc., are used.
- Examples of Native Mobile Apps:
Instagram, Twitter, Google Maps, Skype, are the live demo for the native mobile app development.
Native Mobile Applications are a good option if you want to engage with full features of the user’s mobile. Native apps are easily available from the app store and can allows use of microphone, speaker and hence offering a more dynamic and versatile of the application where all different mobile features can be put to good use.
Hybrid Mobile Applications
As the name suggests these are the applications that operate with a combination of both PWA and Native Mobile application.
What is Hybrid Mobile App?
A hybrid app is one that is written with the same technology used for websites and mobile web implementations, and that is hosted or runs inside a native container on a mobile device. It is the matrimony in harmony of web technology and native execution.UI Web View in iOS and WebView in Android are the features of the Hybrid mobile app, (i.e.,) the hybrid app is built with web technologies and available in the native app platform.
Requirements:
- Programming Language: JavaScript
- Frameworks: React Native, Ionic can be used to develop Hybrid apps.
- Examples of Hybrid Mobile Apps: Facebook, Amazon are some of the best real-time applications that are performed under the Hybrid mobile app development process.
Hybrid Mobile Apps are divers they enjoy features of both PWA and Native mobile apps and this makes them highly preferred for business use. It is important to understand they have similar lay out to that of web app and they are faster like PWA and easily available to use all features of mobiles like Native Mobile Applications.
End Note
These were some of the commonly used mobile apps you need to conduct proper research and business analysis before deciding which app will be best suited for your business. It is important to understand all the features of different types of mobile apps and choosing the one who benefits your business the most.
Written by Namit Jaitly
Web Development Trainee@NSPL RTC
Intern@NSPL