Is Your Mobile App Development Strategy Correct?

By Author: Kelly Burby
Total Articles: 349
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The market of handheld devices is growing every day. It is no more an assumption that handheld devices, e.g. smartphones, tables and other similar gadgets will sooner or later have largest share in the computer market. Many people have already discovered the worth of having a smart device in the pocket. Using smart devices to feed entertainment appetite may appear less important to serious business people but they will be amazed to know how cleverly the same devices can take care of their business. Businesses are seeing growing interest of people in handheld devices and companies are coming up with such mobile app strategies that would help them in growing their business.

Many enterprises are planning to have fairly large IT budgets for mobile application development, as they have found that, apart from good association with consumer culture, mobility expenditures symbolize serious business too. Does it mean that mobile platforms like iOS, Android, BlackBerry or Windows Phone can attract all enterprises? Off course not. Not all businesses have found mobile devices useful for their work operations, particularly where ...
... efficiency and speed are prerequisites. Certain computing tasks will always be executed on full-scale screen.

There are hundreds of areas where mobile applications can really boost businesses and deliver the desired productivity. Enterprises on large scale have discovered this fact in more recent times when mobile apps have proved to be a boon for many companies. Some have already brought themselves on mobile platforms while others are in testing phase. But many enterprises appear confused with terms like native, hybrid and web.

The case for native apps is slightly different than web and hybrid apps. It is the purest form of mobile application development. People love using their smartphones because of native apps. Users download native apps, install them on their devices, and use them any time. iOS and Android are two mobile operating systems that have been deeply stressing on native mobile application development. The stress is now clearly visible when we see the wealthiest app stores of iOS and Android. The trend has been followed by Microsoft and RIM too. When native apps are written, they communicate with specific hardware and software features to deliver their functions.It means that you cannot run an iOS app on Android OS. Such apps can also use many features such as multi-touch gestures like finer swinging and pinching. They can also communicate with Global Positioning System location tracking, camera functions, data storage, advanced graphics and accelerometer. Native apps are easy tool for mobile computing. They respond more quickly as they do not have to reach web database for performing operations. They can also take advantages of features of an OS. Native apps are the best option for a variety of utility operations. Slow wireless network does not also cause any problem on the performance of native apps.

Web application development is also a way to have fully functional web based software. Web applications are built using the HTML5 technology. It provides plenty of support in web browsers. Tools for building web based mobile software are already available. But native app developers still challenge that web apps lag behind in terms of user experience and functionality. If a user has slow wireless network connectivity, it can become a pain to get a job done through web apps. Many users often do not like that their smart devices completely depend on network connectivity.

But it does not mean that web apps are worthless. Web app developers claim that the gap can be filled by HTML5. Mobile application development with web technologies has numerous benefits. The most obvious benefit is that enterprises do not have to get different versions of an app developed for different mobile operating systems. Instead, a web app can be optimized to run on different browsers. This feature is known as cross-browser compatibility.

Native app developers argue that web apps cannot be developed with better graphics and cannot deliver functionality close to native apps. But web developers answer with the references of latest web standards for Cascading Style Sheets and HTML5 which enable slick usability features and better graphics similar to native apps. HTML5 also supports audio and video tags and thus it frees user from installing plug-ins to handle multimedia contents.

But web apps are not available on app stores and it is one major drawback behind their unpopularity. This is a strong point for those developers who always advocate native apps. They say that it is a pretty unprofessional and very inconvenient way to seek or remember the URL of a web app every time when you want to use it. But this drawback does not discourage some web app developers, particularly those who have mobile phone programming skills too. Many developers have found a middle way of developing web apps and named it as hybrid application development.

A hybrid application development takes advantage of both methods- native and web app development. Hybrid apps look like native apps and user can download them from app stores. This type of app is built using both technologies thus the end-result has the features of both. In this method a tiny app is released on app stores which any user can download and install on their device. The app uses some features from its existence on user’s device while others from embedded web pages. This method solves the problem of web app developers and of course shuts the mouth of native app developers who have been citing the unavailability of web apps on apps stores as their major disadvantage.

These are the basic forms in which an app can be developed. It totallydepends on the company’s needs to decide what type of mobile app development option is best for them. Mobile apps for Enterprises isdefinitely the trend but the organization needs to sit and make the right decision.

To know more about mobile application development or to develop any kind of mobile app contact Rapidsoft Technologies.