Tag: hybrid mobile app developers

7 Apps That Shifted the Businesses’ Interest Toward Hybrid App Development

Posted on by Abhishek Kalyan

So, you are planning to develop a mobile app for your business growth. Then you must probably be confused between choosing between native and hybrid mobile app development. The battle between these two approaches is never-ending, as they both have their own pros and cons. However, hybrid apps have gained huge momentum and are actually giving a fierce competition to native apps. Here we will explore a few examples of apps that have shifted the interest of businesses toward hybrid app development.

Examples of Famous Hybrid Apps

Evernote

Evernote is one of the great productivity apps built using HTML. The hybrid app is known for its elegance, robustness, and multi-device sync capability, making it seamless and stand out from the competition. It also delivers smooth, native-like experience due to which the users love the app. 

A few features of Evernote are:

  • Automatic syncing of all important notes
  • Use the camera to capture and scan anything
  • Share memos or notes with friends and colleagues
  • Search for text inside images
  • Sort and organize information by date, title, or tag
  • Record audio notes
  • Create to-do lists with checkboxes

Instagram

Instagram is one of the leading social media apps that allow users to share images and videos, thus witnessing massive engagement. Powered by HTML5, the app supports both offline data and rich media. Besides, it allows users to access its media even when they have no or low internet connectivity.

A few features of Instagram are:

  • Post images and short videos to your feed
  • Create stories which are deleted automatically after 24 hours
  • Share your views on others’ post in the comment section
  • Text your friends directly
  • Access IGTV to watch longer videos.
  • Save favorite posts with a tap
  • Shoot videos, add filters and music from the Instagram catalog like Tik-Tok

Gmail

Talking about hybrid apps, and how can we forget Gmail, an app that has eased our professional lives. Google leveraged the potential of HTML5 to redefine the user experience of this email app with advanced features and functionalities.

Earlier, Gmail had limited usability as it was powered by HTML only. But now Google has made a new version of Gmail by combining HTML and native elements, which made the app more meaningful with a seamless experience.

A few features of Gmail are:

  • An organized inbox to categorize promotional and social messages
  • 15GB of free data storage to store emails
  • Multiple accounts support
  • Schedule emails to be sent at a later date or time
  • Snooze emails for later viewing
  • Set an expiration date and passcode for sensitive emails

Twitter

Twitter is another social media app that has actually brought a revolution in hybrid app development approach. The app witnesses massive traffic day in and day out, which fostered the demand for this kind of hybrid app.

A few features of Twitter are:

  • Express your thoughts by writing a tweet
  • Stay updated with the viral and latest news
  • Follow other users 
  • Get notifications about new followers, retweets, mentions, and more
  • Watch live and premium video stream from your mobile device

Baskin Robbins

The famous ice cream parlor, Baskin Robbins, leveraged the latest HTML version to make its app perform like a native app in terms of features and performance. The app provides the best offline access to the users with the same UI on multiple platforms.

A few features of Baskin Robbins are:

  • Access coupons and deals
  • Order customizable cakes and ice creams
  • Make instant and easy payments 
  • Locate the nearest Baskin Robbins shop
  • Purchase and share Baskin Robbins cards to friends and family
  • Stay informed on various events and promotions throughout the year

Sworkit

Sworkit is a fitness application that provides an ultimate guide on physical workouts and exercises through an interactive video session. It motivates users to set their fitness goals and make a strategy to achieve them within the ser timeframe. Users can also sync the app with Google fit app to track their health and activities hassle-free.

A few features of Sworkit are:

  • Get six weeks program to get physically fit
  • Access over 300 customizable workouts, 400 bodyweight and small equipment exercises, etc
  • Add or remove exercises to personalize the available workouts
  • Fix your own schedule to do workout
  • Get assistance from certified trainers

Remote POS

Remote POS app helps in managing and controlling an entire restaurant seamlessly. The app has a higher capacity, thanks to its cloud as well as local data storage. Though it can work offline, it requires an internet connection for printing the generated bills. Besides, the app facilitates order management and staff handling.

A few features of Remote POS are:

  • Allow customers to view restaurant’s menu and place an order
  • Offer fast and easy transactions
  • Send notifications about discounts and events
  • Create a customer loyalty program

Final Words

These are some of the examples that prove that hybrid app development has come a long way now. Since all of the above-mentioned apps have gained tremendous popularity, it won’t be wrong to say that this approach is here to stay, and businesses will happily hire hybrid mobile app developers to go mobile quickly.

Also read: Why businesses invest in hybrid mobile app development

How Ionic Benefits Hybrid Mobile App Development Process

Posted on by Abhishek Kalyan

Ionic is an open-source framework used for creating hybrid apps that utilize a mobile platform’s Webview. These apps offer various advantages over native apps in terms of speed, cost, and platform support. The framework has facilitated the development of hybrid apps as they are written using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Besides, it is deemed as a UI framework that handles UI interactions of apps with support of native mobile components and elegant designs. Thus, we can say that Ionic emphasizes UI interactions and the look as well as the feel of the app.

Ionic also provides themes and components that allow hybrid mobile app developers to create apps having an intuitive and interactive user interface (UI). The framework offers both light and dark themes for mobile apps. And its features include typography, an extensible base theme, mobile components, and interactive paradigms that improve the app’s functionality. An Ionic app is developed through the Ionic command line (CLI) and requires a native wrapper like Cordova to operate as a native application. Also, the Ionic CLI comes with a built-in development server.

Why You Should Opt Ionic for Hybrid App Development Services

Easy to Adopt

Developing hybrid apps using Ionic is way easier if a developer has profound HTML, CSS, and JavaScript expertise. Besides, they can easily switch to Ionic if you need a quick and interactive app for your business.

Cross-Platform App Development

Ionic supports Android, iOS, and Universal Windows Platform (UWP) for creating a cross-platform app using the same code. Thus, it requires less programming, effort, resources to develop an app that runs seamlessly on multiple platforms, and have a unified look and feel.

Built on AngularJS

Ionic uses AngularJS, a widely used structure framework, to provide multiple functionalities using which designers can integrate appealing components into the app. Using AngularJS, Ionic also offers a robust structure that facilitates code management and improves the performance of hybrid apps.

User Interface

Ionic has multiple default CSS and JS components that cover the majority of requisites for hybrid mobile app development. These components include shape inputs, routes, tabs, sliding menus, sliding boxes, and more. The default styles are basic and smooth, and developers can redo them by adding pre-defined CSS classes to the component.

Utilizes Cordova Plugins

Ionic uses Cordova plugins to allow hybrid mobile app developers to access various components and features like GPS, Camera, Flashlight, and more. Such plugins help in building an app that can reach its maximum working capacity by using one or more of these features of an operating system.

Easy Testing

Testing a hybrid app is far easier with Ionic. QA engineers can test it on a desktop browser or even perform simulator testing for both Android and iOS using Cordova commands. Testing can even be done with a mobile browser or safari in iOS devices. Besides, they can directly test the app on the actual platform to get an idea of how the app would run.

Huge Community

Understanding the Ionic capabilities to get the most of the framework is the most challenging part while developing a hybrid app. However, Ionic has a huge community of active technology experts who help developers understand the framework’s ins and outs and provide solutions to every problem they face. Also, they keep on posting about the framework, Angular, and other related subjects on various forums to educate people in the best possible way.

Final Words

Ionic is an excellent framework for developing basic native functionalities within an app that operates across various operating systems. The framework also expedites the hybrid mobile app development process and reduces the need for maintenance. So, if you want to develop a quick app using Ionic, and make a statement in the market, invest in our hybrid app development services. Our experts have profound expertise in building high-performance hybrid apps using Ionic and technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Guide on Choosing the Best Tech Stack for Mobile App Development

Posted on by Abhishek Kalyan

Planning to develop a Mobile app for your business?

If so, let’s think for a moment that the mobile app is a dish and the tech stack is its ingredients. Just as we cannot make a delicious dish without the right ingredients, similarly, we cannot develop a smooth and functional mobile app without the right technology stack.

So, to give away the recipe for building an app, we have shed light on the advanced ingredients using which you can develop a future-proof app.

Let’s dive in..

Native App Development

Businesses invest in native app development because of its various benefits like fast performance, full-device integration, excellent user experience, security, and responsiveness. This approach requires platform-specific languages, software development kits (SDKs), integrated development environments (IDEs), and other tools provided by OS vendors. Besides, native apps are perfectly compatible with specific operating system – iOS or Android. So, you have to employ different app development technologies for each platform. Apps like Pokemon Go and Lyft are the results of native app development.

Technology Stack for iOS Apps

Programming Languages: Objective-C and Swift

For developing an iOS app for your business, you can choose either Swift or Objective-C. Objective-C is a superset of C language and provides a dynamic runtime environment, along with object-oriented capabilities.

However, businesses incline toward Swift because it is more functional and provides code that is less prone to errors, thanks to its inline support for manipulating data and text strings. Besides, this programming language has dynamic libraries that developers can directly upload to memory, thus reduce the initial size of the app, and improve its performance considerably.

Toolkit: Apple Xcode

Apple Xcode is a fully-featured development environment that allows you to develop mobile as well as desktop apps. This resourceful toolkit comes with a graphical editor for designing interactive user interfaces, integrated support for Git repositories, built-in documentation, and instrumentation and debugging tools.

Software Development Kit: iOS SDK

The iOS SDK has an application programming language (API) that serves as a bridge between the apps and the platform they operate on. This SDK provides specialized tools for the touchscreen interface of Apple and its proprietary iOS, which is used to run apps on iPhones as well as iPads.

Technology Stack for Android Apps

Programming Languages: Java and Kotlin

Java and Kotlin are the sought-after programming languages for native Android app development. Java has been around for years and has established itself as a language with vast open-source tools and libraries to support Android app developers. However, it has some limitations that hamper the Android API design.

On the other hand, Kotlin has lately introduced itself as a more stable development option for Android apps. The language is designed to overcome the limitations of Java and is inherently clean, lightweight, and less repetitive. As a result, Kotlin helps to create a fully operational Android app having animated micro-interactions and smooth transitions between screens.

Toolkit: Android Studio and Android Developer Tools (ADT)

Android Studio gained popularity because of its offerings like code editing, performance tooling, a flexible build system, debugging, and a quick build/deploy system. The toolkit allows Android app developers to create high-performance applications.

Besides, ADT provides Android-specific coding support and enables developers to exploit various on-device debugging tools, emulators, a graphical UI builder, and fully scriptable test automation support.

Software Development Kit: Android SDK

To write codes with the latest features, developers should download and install each version of SDK for a particular mobile device. The components or tools of the Android SDK can be downloaded individually. Third-party add-ons are also readily available for download.

Both Apple and Google provide their own development tools, SDKs, and interface elements for building a native app. You have to consider your budget, goals, and target audience to decide which native app development approach suits the best to your business.

Hybrid Mobile App Development

Hybrid app development uses a shared code developed using standard web technologies, including HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. The shared code is subsequently wrapped in a native container – the WebView and shipped as a regular application. Businesses usually prefer this app development approach because of its various benefits like low cost and easy maintenance.

Technology Stack for Hybrid Apps

Cordova/PhoneGap

Apache Cordova is an open-source framework designed to run HTML/JavaScript-based apps inside the native container on a mobile device. These apps can access device-specific features like cameras and sensors, thanks to the native device that JavaScript APIs exposed.

Moreover, PhoneGap supports multiple frameworks and libraries, such as AngularJS, jQuery, and Knockoutjs. Thus, hybrid mobile app developers do not have to rely only on HTML and CSS to design user interfaces.

Ionic

Ionic is an open-source Angular-based framework that allows hybrid mobile app developers to build robust and versatile apps having a native look and feel. The framework is used to design basic native functionalities within an application to facilitate its operation on different OS and devices. The key benefits of this Ionic are:

  • Supports robust and rapid app development
  • Several ready-made plugins
  • Mainly built using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, which are familiar technologies
  • AngularJS compatible
  • Engaged community

Besides, the development and maintenance cost of Ionic apps is far less than native apps.

Cross-Platform App Development

Cross-platform app development is sought after among businesses due to its code reusability, low development cost, and easy deployment and maintenance. Developers use a single code base to develop a cross-platform app that runs on different platforms simultaneously. This codebase also connects to native components via APIs to provide native-like UX.

Also, you need to know that hybrid and cross-platform apps are not similar. The only common feature between them is code shareability, which speeds up their development process.

Technology Stack for Cross-Platform Apps

There are multiple frameworks for cross-platform apps. Let’s take a closer look at some of the popular ones.

React Native + JavaScript/TypeScript

React Native is the most demanding JavaScript framework used to create mobile apps with a native look and feel for both Android and iOS. The framework uses a similar fundamental UI building block as native Android and iOS apps. The only difference is that React Native app developers need to put these blocks together using React and JavaScript in case of cross-platform app development.

Besides, React Native brings forth a novel and highly functional methodology for developing user interfaces. The React Native apps are written and run in JavaScript, but their UI is entirely native.

Alternatively, cross-platform apps can also be built using TypeScript language that provides excellent features for rapid and simple error detection when building React components. Generic components are beneficial in the TypeScript toolbox as they offer an additional security layer while writing components. This, in turn, tightens the feedback loop and helps developers to detect errors rapidly.

Businesses prefer this platform because the cost of developing a React Native app is about 40% lower than a native app.

Xamarin + C#

Xamarin is a quite handy tool for cross-platform development that enables developers to share approx. 90% of code across major platforms. The framework uses C#, which is a statically typed programming language with mature tooling and IDE support. Apps developed using this language are cross-compiled to native iOS and Android binaries. Developers can also utilize device-specific APIs and functionality from within C#.

How to Choose the Best Technology Stack

Now you have a stack of technology stacks for developing a mobile app, how would you find the best one for your app development project? Having a solid plan of the tech stack is imperative to create a high-quality, secure, scalable, and easy-to-maintain app. So, we have outlined a few factors that you can take note of, to choose the best app development technologies.

Type of Project

If you’re planning to develop a complex mobile app with excellent performance and a fully custom UI implementation, go for native. Kotlin and Swift have commonly used programming languages for developing Android and iOS apps, respectively.

Validating an idea

If you are a startup and want to validate your app idea with an MVP, get feedback of users, and gain a competitive advantage, count on cross-platform approach. React Native is the right choice of developing an MVP as it is cost-effective and easy to create with wide platform coverage.

Time to Market

If you want to expedite your app development and quickly step in the market, consider a framework or language with a plethora of ready-made solutions for common development purposes like authentication and social media integrations.

Final Words

To wrap up, we would say that choosing the best tech stack aligning with your goals and vision can help you hit the moon and create a dominating presence in your respective industry. If you want more insights on how to choose a tech stack for your app development project, book a free consultation with our expert.

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