HYBRID APP DEVELOPMENT

Hybrid mobile apps are applications that are installed on a device, just like any other app. What differentiates them is the fact they possess elements from native apps, applications developed for a specific platform such as iOS or Android, with elements from web apps, websites that act like apps but are not installed on a device but are accessed on the Internet via a browser.

It is in fact displaying web pages from a desktop website that are adapted to a Web View display. The web content can either be displayed as soon as the app is opened or for certain parts of the app only i.e. for the purchase funnel.

In order to access a device’s hardware features (accelerometer, camera, contacts…) for which the native apps are installed, it is possible to include native elements of each platform’s user interfaces (iOS, Android): native code will be used to access the specific features in order to create a seamless user experience. Hybrid apps can also rely on platforms that offer JavaScript APIs if those functionalities are called within a WebView.

Advantages of Hybrid App Development

• Combining user experience with an agile development cycle and controlled costs.
• Finding resources: most applications have an iOS version and an Android version. They are thus developed using the corresponding programming language: Objective-C or Swift for iOS, Java for Android.
• Reusing the code of the web app part: the code is written once and deployed across all mobile platforms.
• Reducing development time and costs: the code is written once, which substantially reduces development time and costs compared to native apps which require development for iOS and development for Android.