Hybrid App – A Pace towards Hybrid Thinking

Overview – Probing through Mobile Applications development recently, one would stumble upon the concept Hybrid App. A mixture of dynamic content loading, integration with native apps and web based services, leads to Hybrid app. We are in a fast paced world, where huge information is accessible on hand 24/7

We are in the age of extraordinary use of Mobile apps. Banking, Travel, Finance, Navigation and a lot more, are used frequently on our Mobile devices.  Hybrid apps make it possible and they are the feasible solution to many problems.

Native App vs. Hybrid App Native app, resides fully on the local storage of a device. It is easily accessible and the performance is better. It does not require an internet connection to fetch app details on a phone. This ensures fastness. But on the other hand, it is platform oriented. So, it has to be custom-coded or custom-designed for each platform. This becomes cumbersome task.

Hybrid app is a result of integration of web applications with native browser. It has the finest ideas of native and web application pooled as one bundle. It is a generic application for numerous platforms. It works perfectly, even if they are not connected to internet. Overall, the development of such app is rapid and easy to maintain.

Resources for Hybrid App development – A good framework, speed and the look of the app, decides effectiveness of any app. Open Source offers various components and tools for such Hybrid app development. Some of them are

1.       Angular JS - Toolset

2.       JQuery

3.       Mobile optimized HTML

4.       Cordova – APIs

5.    PhoneGap, Ionic, OneSen UI, Kendo UI- Framework

6.       Appcelerator Titanium – Developer environment

Downsides of Hybrid App – Though we have so much to talk on Hybrid app best features. We do have some downside on this. Some of them are
1.       Slower compared to native apps

2.       Performance issues

3.       All aspects not covered by HTML5

4.       Many are rejected by Apple, as they expect them close to native apps.

Points to analyze for a Hybrid app development – Any hybrid mobile development, need a little analysis as groundwork. The following are some generic things to ponder:

Know the Mobile Operating System

Know the software and Hardware details

Learn about emulators, tools, SDK

Choose the best design for hybrid app

Choose a suitable framework, tools and open source elements for hybrid app

Know the best practices to integrate and make it as hybrid app

Know the best coding standards and optimization techniques

Choose Desirable Testing tools

Plan how debugging and maintenance has to be done

Know how to create best documentation to support the app

Conclusion – A huge buzz is going on Hybrid Apps, in the web designand mobile app development world. There is good amount of effort going in, to leverage of such hybrid apps. The future would be to encounter more efficient and robust hybrid apps for mobiles.
The need for Hybrid apps for mobiles is growing in numbers. Good amount of improvement is happening on the tools for Hybrid apps. It is expected that hybrid apps would hit the race in good speed.