Understanding the 3 Types of Mobile Apps

Understanding the 3 Types of Mobile Apps: Native, Mobile, and Hybrid 

A breakdown of the 3 types of apps and a list of the best cross platforms to use in mobile app development 

Smartphones have become an inseparable part of our daily lives. Activities like waking up with a morning alarm, checking Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitter; listening to music, reading news, watching YouTube videos; adjusting the thermostat and lighting, updating project status; and the list goes on. All of these mutually exclusive applications run independently on main operating platforms; seamlessly bringing our smartphones to life – all in real time.

We see hundreds of new apps in the market every year, and the demand for mobile application development continues to increase. Although we’re familiar with operating systems (i.e. iOS and Android), chances are, we’re not clued-in on the specific technology platforms software developers use throughout the design and development process in building apps. We hope that after reading this blog, you will better understand the three types of apps and cross platforms, including a few you’ve never heard of – in your journey to understand progressive web development.

Three Types of Apps: Native, Hybrid, and Web

Native mobile apps: 

Native mobile apps are designed to be “native” to one platform, whether it’s Apple iOS, Google’s Android, or Windows Phone. The native platform can be advantageous because it tends to optimize the user experience. Because it was developed specifically for the platform, it can operate more quickly and intuitively.

Hybrid mobile apps: 

These apps can be installed on devices just like native apps, but they run through web browsers. All hybrid apps are developed through the HTML5 programming language. Though hybrid apps are not as fast or reliable as native apps, they have a greater capacity for streamlining the development process. Because you don’t have to build and maintain apps for separate platforms, your business can save on time and resources. It’s ideal for apps that primarily deliver content.

Web apps: 

Responsive websites switch to a different design when they are accessed from a mobile device. Adaptive web applications, on the other hand, scale to fit the different screen sizes of mobile devices. For these apps, the design doesn’t change. Web apps are built using the most popular programming languages, but they can’t use hardware on mobile devices or be sold in any app stores.

Cross Platform Apps: Best Cross Platform Mobile App Development List

Xamarin
Xamarin delivers native Android, iOS, and Windows apps, using existing skills, teams, and code.

Adobe PhoneGap 
PhoneGap is a mobile application development framework based on an open source project (Apache Cordova).

Appcelerator
Appcelerator is an enterprise-focused development platform that lets developers write JavaScript with its Alloy MVC framework.

Kony
Kony offers a range of tools as part of its enterprise Mobility Platform to help business create apps from a single codebase.

Sencha Touch
Sencha Touch is the leading cross-platform mobile web application framework based on HTML5 and JavaScript for creating universal mobile apps.

Appery.io
Appery.io is the best cloud-based mobile app builder platform that the mobile phone application developer can use to create best apps for Android, iOS, and Windows phone, and includes Apache Cordova with access to its built-in components.

Charter Global leverages its experience across multiple, proven app development and ecommerce cloud-based platforms:  SAP Fiori, SAP HANA, SAP Business One, Magento, PCI DSS, Spring MVC (Framework), Magnolia CMS/ Blossom module, HTML5, CSS3, JQuery, Struts. Charter Global is also the only Oracle partner that offers native pre-configured customizable mobile apps for JD Edwards users.

What are the 5 phases in the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) - Charter Global

With all the complex processes involved in software development, it’s easy to forget the fundamental process for a successful software development life cycle (SDLC). The SDLC process includes planning, designing, developing, testing and deploying with ongoing maintenance to create and manage an applications efficiently. When faced with the task of producing high-quality software that meets a client’s expectations, requirements, time-frame, and cost estimations; understanding the SDLC is crucial.

SDLC models, or methodologies, are used to create complex applications of varying sizes and scales, such as Agile, Waterfall and Spiral. Each model follows a particular life cycle in order to ensure success in the process of software development.

SDLC Phases:

1. Planning and analysis

This phase is the most fundamental in the SDLC process. Business requirements are compiled and analyzed by a business analyst, domain expert, and project manager. The business analyst interacts with stakeholders to develop the business requirements document. They also write use cases and share this information with the project team. The aim of the requirements analysis is for quality assurance, technical feasibility, and to identify potential risks to address in order for the software to succeed.

2. Designing the product architecture

During the design phase, lead developers and technical architects create the initial high-level design plan for the software and system. This includes delivery of requirements used to create the Design Document Specification (DDS). This document details database tables to be added, new transactions to be defined, security processes, as well as hardware and system requirements.

3. Developing and coding

In this phase the database admin creates and imports the necessary data into the database. Programming languages are defined by requirements. Developers create the interface as per the coding guidelines and conduct unit testing. This is an important phase for developers. They need to be open minded and flexible if any changes are introduced by the business analyst.

4. Testing

Testers test the software against the requirements to make sure that the software is solving the needs addressed and outlined during the planning phase. All tests are conducted as functional testing, including unit testing, integration testing, system testing, acceptance testing, and non-functional testing.  

5. Maintenance

In a post-production, live custom software application development company, the system is in maintenance mode. No matter the number of users, the sophistication of the software and rigorous QA testing, issues will occur. That’s the nature of software with managing data, integration, and security, and real world usage. Access to knowledgeable, reliable support resources is essential, as is routine maintenance and staying up to date on upgrades.

Read More: https://www.charterglobal.com/enterprise-solutions/

Get in touch with our team to discuss IT staffing and software development solutions that can supersede your existing solutions on mobile and web applications.