Hybrid App Development Archives | Beyond Root Technology Services

In this fast-paced age, competition among businesses is harder than ever. They continuously seek new avenues to stay ahead of the curve. Since this a digital era, most of them invest in mobile apps to reach out to a diverse audience and extend their roots. However, due to ever-increasing technologies, it becomes difficult for them to choose the right one. For years, small businesses have counted on React Native and Xamarin for developing a budget-friendly app, but Google’s Flutter has now started making a statement in the mobile app market.

Flutter is an open-source hybrid mobile app development framework that helps build cross-platform apps using Dart programming language. The rising popularity of this framework is evidenced by the fact that it is now among the top-20 software repositories of GitHub. It achieved this feat within a few months of its release. Let’s explore what makes Flutter unique and why you should choose this framework for hybrid app development services.

Benefits of Flutter

Single Codebase

Flutter allows hybrid mobile app developers to create a cross-platform app using a single code base. It means that they don’t have to code separately for Android and iOS apps. This helps them to quickly develop it and improve its design, quality, and speed to elevate its installation rate.

Dart as a Programming Language

Flutter uses Dart as a programming language to provide certain benefits to the developers. First, Dart is Google’s in-house production, so it is best-suited for Flutter. Second, Dart uses a reactive framework and manages both backend and frontend on its own.

Use of Customizable Widgets

Flutter provides a comprehensive library of fast and customizable widgets that give the app a native-like feeling. In Flutter’s UI toolkit, the widget catalog is divided by category for easy usability. These widgets are integrated to create a highly portable and responsive app that operates on multiple platforms and layouts.

Native Themes for iOS/Android

Flutter offers different native themes for both operating systems. The theme elements, like icons, fonts, and patterns, ensure that both platforms provide users with native user experience.

Stateful Hot Reload

The “Stateful Hot Reload” or “Hot Restart” functionality of Flutter allows hybrid mobile app developers to view changes made on the app in real-time. This feature instantly refreshes the app UI like a webpage, helping developers save up to 40% of their time.

Multiple Packages and Extensive Community

Flutter has a plethora of open-source packages that expedite the mobile app development process. This library, supporting both iOS and Android, is growing rapidly with the help of the ever-growing developer community.

Powerful Design Experience

Flutter facilitates designing powerful UI experience of the app, thanks to its easy implementation of the design specifications. This immensely benefits the developers, especially when it comes to creating a native-like experience through hybrid mobile app development.

Easier Animations

Flutter has a 2D Flare tool that makes it easy to create spectacular and complex animations with vector graphics and run them in Flutter’s rendering engine. The primary goal of this tool is to minimize the time to implement changes that need animations.

Create Apps for Mobile, Desktop, and the Web

Announced at Flutter live 2018, Hummingbird enables hybrid mobile app developers to use the same code to develop apps for mobile, desktop, and web simultaneously.

Final Words

With ample benefits, it is no surprise why some of the giants, like Google Ads, Alibaba, and AppTree, have developed their apps using Flutter. On top of this, the framework is backed by Google, which means you will never have a lack of support. So, considering Flutter hybrid app development services can help you quickly step into the market and gain a competitive edge.

Mobile app development is no longer limited to native apps only. Owing to the idea of hybrid app development, companies are able to capture the whole consumer market regardless of their phones and operating system. About 80% of consumer mobile usage is due to native applications. With the HTML5 hybrid app approach, this percentage is only going to rise. Besides, hybrid applications promise to change the way we ideate or conceptualize app development.

What are HTML5 Hybrid Applications?

As the name implies, hybrid apps are the applications that can be run on multiple platforms like Android and iOS. The key feature of these apps is their extensibility, as users don’t have to be concerned about limitations related to the applications they install on their mobile phones.

HTML5 and JavaScript are widely used for developing hybrid apps that are then packaged for installation on various devices through conventional app stores. Hybrid applications can be locally executed on native app packages, which facilitates their access to inbuilt mobile features like GPRS, camera, and more. Typically, a hybrid application comprises an HTML5 hybrid web app within a wrapper. The wrapper is basically a simple native app or a full-screen browser window where the HTML document of the web app can be loaded. When the application starts, the HTML document loads, and the web application starts running in a browser window inside the wrapper application. Thus, hybrid applications run faster and can be executed offline with a native app.

Before hybrid mobile app development, you need to meticulously examine all the technical aspects associated with its design and development. Since hybrid apps can be launched on multiple platforms using a single HTML5 codebase, they are highly cost-effective and can penetrate the market quickly.

Where are Mobile App Development Startups Headed to?

The surge in hybrid applications is a tide that many mobile app entrepreneurs are trying to ride. However, despite the low development cost and time, accomplished mobile app development companies still prefer to invest in native app development. Currently, not all hybrid app developers are able to provide a comprehensive user experience to the applications. Startups devising to embark on hybrid app development would have to go into overdrive to build consistent cross-platform user interfaces.

Technologically speaking, software available for building native applications is far better than what is available for hybrid apps. However, the evolution of hybrid app frameworks like React Native, Ionic, Flutter, etc. are revolutionizing the existing ways of app development and gaining a lot of traction. Thus, businesses are now less reluctant to try their hand at developing hybrid apps and delivering quick, cost-effective solutions.

Future of Hybrid Applications

Currently, native application development seems to be a more favorable choice for most businesses. But over time, the next-gen HTML5 hybrid application will rule over the market. The future of mobile app development lies in the hands of JavaScript and HTML5, the combination of which can significantly improve the end-user experience of apps regardless of their platform. Eventually, hybrid apps will be smoother, richer, and consistent in UI behavior.

Besides, in continuous efforts for improvement and advancements, Google’s Angular JS and Appurify are making considerable progress. With other companies also realizing the potential of hybrid apps, it is just a matter of time when hybrid application development will outshine the native application development. In the foreseeable future, the paradigm shift of technologies will allow mobile app development companies to prefer and develop hybrid applications over native applications.

Takeaway

The consumer market is propelled by constant technology evolution. Plenty of companies are extending their mobile app development services according to the framework of choice. To develop a hybrid app, you don’t have to be concerned about the budget. All you have to do is to consider the type of consumers you want to target. Besides, hiring a hybrid app development company that understands your idea and has expertise in creating cross-platform apps can be a smart move.

To sum up, the time is not far when hybrid application development will turn into a boon for all the business verticals and the app market. We believe that investing in a hybrid app, now, will give you fruitful outcomes in the coming future.