What is Hybrid Mobile App Development?
Last updated: December 04, 2024 Read in fullscreen view
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Hybrid apps are a blend of both native and web solutions. Where the core of the application is written using web technologies. In this article we dive deep into hybrid app development.
When beginning to choose your solution to create a new mobile application, you are often faced with a wide range of options, but are unsure of where to begin. Is building your application solely with native solutions the right choice? Should your team look at only developing with web technologies? What about some of the hybrid solutions out there? These are among the many questions that arise when deliberating which path is best for your business.
To start the process, it’s important to remember that picking the right solution for your next application (or first) depends on several factors: Your budget, the timeline, your team’s experience with the technology and, finally, your target audience.
What is a Hybrid Mobile App?
This solution is a blend, hence the name hybrid, of both native and web solutions. Where the core of the application is written using web technologies (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript), which are then encapsulated within a native application. Through the use of plugins, these applications can have full access to the mobile device’s features. To better understand this approach, let’s break down how it all fits together.
The heart of a hybrid-mobile application is still just an application that is written with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. However, instead of the app being shown within the user’s browser, it is run from within a native application and its own embedded browser, which is essentially invisible to the user. For example, an iOS application would use the WKWebView to display our application, while on Android it would use the WebView element to do the same function.
This code is then embedded into a native application wrapper using a solution like Apache Cordova (also known as PhoneGap) or Ionic’s Capacitor. These solutions create a native shell application that is just the platform’s webview component in which it will load your web application. This gives you the ability to create and publish true native applications that can be submitted to each of the platform’s app stores for sale.
Additionally, both Cordova and Capacitor have a plugin system that allows you to extend beyond the limitations of the ‘browser’ and access the full suite of capabilities of a user’s mobile device. So, if you wanted to use TouchID on an iOS device as a login option, or wanted to connect to a Bluetooth device, this can be easily done by installing a plugin. These plugins are created by a wide range of developers and many are actively supported. Ionic even offers a complete ecosystem of supported plugins as part of its Enterprise solution. So, the limitations of a web-only application are easily overcome, allowing your application to have parity with native applications in their features.
However, there are some drawbacks with this option. Similarly to the web-only application solution, the UI library has to be recreated. Here is where solutions like Ionic, NativeScript, Xamarin, React Native, and others step in. These options all provide robust UI components that look and feel like their native counterparts, giving you a full suite of building blocks for your hybrid mobile app.
The only other consideration to take into account is if your application is still running within the device’s native browser. If so, you may encounter performance issues or other quirks specific to each platform or operating version.
Key Features: Native, Web, & Hybrid
| Feature | Native | Web-only | Hybrid |
|---|---|---|---|
| Device Access | Full | Limited | Full (with plugins) |
| Performance | High | Medium to High | Medium to High |
| Development Language | Platform Specific | HTML, CSS, Javascript | HTML, CSS, Javascript |
| Cross-Platform Support | No | Yes | Yes |
| User Experience | High | Medium to High | Medium to High |
| Code Reuse | No | Yes | Yes |
Robust Hybrid App Solutions
Hybrid mobile apps is a smart approach for businesses as they bring the best of both the worlds – web and native apps. Going hybrid lowers the development cost, offers easy access to device data, and empowers the business with an app that works offline. Apart from these benefits, hybrid apps also scale to a variety of OS and platforms, which definitely can be a winning advantage for any business.
At TIGO, we offer expertise in hybrid app development and cater to apps that have the potential to open new frontiers for your business. Hire Hybrid app developer having in-depth expertise in hybrid technologies enables organizations cut down their development costs while leveraging modern methodologies for an attractive UI and smooth UX. We offer apps that are faster time to market, yet do not compromise their quality. Collaborate with us for an amazing hybrid app that takes your business to the next level.
Amazing Features Of One-Pack Hybrid Mobile Apps
Hybrid brings a range of graceful features which developers leverage to develop hybrid apps. There is much more that you can expect by implementing this app development approach.
One-Code Platform
Since hybrid apps are platform-independent, these are to be developed and tested for once and can be deployed over multiple platforms.
Rapid Development
With Hybrid apps, there is an assurance of rapid development as this approach simplifies tons of works with fast and easy execution.
Cost-Effective Development
Besides saving on time, you can also cut down the development cost by developing mobile apps with hybrid frameworks.
Divergent Plug-Ins
With hybrid frameworks, you get access to divergent plug-ins that facilitate multiple hardware and software features for the app.
Enhanced UX
Access to more features obviously translates into better user experience with hybrid apps, which makes them a great choice for businesses.
Offline Capabilities
Hybrid mobile apps are empowered with offline capabilities with local storage and they also support SQLite database for local storage.
Final Thoughts
So, what is the right choice for your application? Unless you are creating a highly performant game or other similar application, hybrid mobile app development might be the right choice because it offers an easier development approach, cost savings, and compatibility across a variety of platforms. While they do require a bit more understanding to mesh the solution together, as well as the use of a UI library to assist in the proper presentation of your user interface, those challenges are known and can be easily solved with the right hybrid mobile app development framework, like Ionic.
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