web, native & hybrid apps overview
DESCRIPTION
So you want a mobile app for your business, great! Now what? Find out what all these mobile apps are about, technology they use, and what they’re good for in our interesting slideshow!TRANSCRIPT
HTML5, Hybrid and Native Apps
A quick overview and reference guide
Types of mobile apps out there
Apps that use only HTML5 code (HTML, CSS, and Javascript) and no native device features or APIs.
Web apps can run in a browser anywhere on any device, desktop, server, etc. Web apps may also be “packaged,” meaning the web-runtime environment is bundled with the app and thus can be distributed to a mobile device through app stores.
~ http://www.wired.com/2013/11/responsive-html5-apps-write-once-run-anywhere-where-is-anywhere/
Web App
Types of apps out there
HTML5 apps that utilize native device features, such as a camera or accelerometer, and use device APIs such as Apache* Cordova (cordova.org).
These apps are also “packaged” for distribution by the various app stores.
~ http://www.wired.com/2013/11/responsive-html5-apps-write-once-run-anywhere-where-is-anywhere/
Hybrid App
Types of apps out there
A native mobile app is a smartphone application that is coded in a specific programming language, such as Objective C for iOS and Java for Android operating systems.
Native mobile apps provide fast performance and a high degree of reliability. They also have access to a phone's various devices, such as its camera and address book. In addition, users can use some apps without an Internet connection. However, this type of app is expensive to develop because it is tied to one type of operating system, forcing the company that creates the app to make duplicate versions that work on other platforms.
~ http://www.techopedia.com/definition/27568/native-mobile-app
Native App
PhoneGap
PhoneGap is an open source framework for quickly building cross-platform mobile apps using HTML5, Javascript and CSS.
Building applications for each device–iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile and more–requires different frameworks and languages. PhoneGap solves this by using standards-based web technologies to bridge web applications and mobile devices. Since PhoneGap apps are standards compliant, they’re future-proofed to work with browsers as they evolve.
via phonegap.com
PhoneGap: Supported Features
via phonegap.com
Cordova
Apache Cordova is a set of device APIs that allow a mobile app developer to access native device function such as the camera or accelerometer from JavaScript. Combined with a UI framework such as jQuery Mobile or Dojo Mobile or SenchaTouch, this allows a smartphone app to be developed with just HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
When using the Cordova APIs, an app can be built without any native code (Java, Objective-C, etc) from the app developer. Instead, web technologies are used, and they are hosted in the app itself locally (generally not on a remote http server).
And because these JavaScript APIs are consistent across multiple device platforms and built on web standards, the app should be portable to other device platforms with minimal to no changes.
Apps using Cordova are still packaged as apps using the platform SDKs, and can be made available for installation from each device's app store. Read more at http://cordova.apache.org/
