Tag: Hybrid Mobile App Development

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

Why You Should Choose Flutter for Hybrid Mobile App Development

Posted on by Abhishek Kalyan

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.

Native, Web, or Hybrid Mobile App Development: What to Choose in 2020?

Posted on by Abhishek Kalyan

Mobile devices have reinvented the way people go online. The Statista reports that the number of smartphone users in 2020 is 3.5B, which translates to 45.04% of the world’s population. This number is likely to increase by several hundred million in the coming years, making smartphones a primary way of going online.

Businesses devising to capitalize on this trend are encountering the challenge of understanding the diverse and ever-changing mobile ecosystem. The surge in smartphone adoption and the evolving user behavior is affecting the mobile app development process. One of the most challenging decisions you may face is whether to go with the mobile web app, native app, or hybrid mobile app development.

Mobile Web App:  A web application is basically a mobile-friendly website developed using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and probably other web technologies. Users access the mobile web apps using a mobile web browser.

Native App: A native application is developed for a specific platform using programming languages supported by the platform, such as Swift for the iOS platform and Java for the Android platform.     

Hybrid App: A hybrid app is a mobile web app that runs natively on an operating system (OS). Developed using HTML, CSS, and Javascript, hybrid applications are further wrapped in a native shell, which can be deployed to multiple mobile devices.

Once, the distinctions between mobile web and native apps were very clear. However, the increase in hybrid mobile app development is changing the decision matrix. Some of the important considerations that can facilitate decision making are explained below.

Device API

The device API allows a mobile application to interface with the device’s hardware and native functionalities like push notifications, GPS, camera, dashboard widgets, and contact. Earlier, this was deemed a major benefit for native applications. But now, hybrid apps utilize native shells to access the full device API. However, mobile web applications have limited native access because they use the mobile browser’s device API.

Speed

Native applications run faster across all the operating systems. On the contrary, hybrid and mobile web apps operate on top of the extra layers which consume computing resources and reduce the app speed. However, a general thumb rule is that unless the application is graphics intensive, speed should not be a major concern for hybrid or mobile web apps.

Development and Maintenance Cost

Development cost is the key advantage for hybrid and mobile web applications as they can be developed once and then deployed to all major platforms. However, deploying a native application to iOS and Android requires writing two different codes for both the platforms.

Besides, native apps incur high maintenance costs since they need quick updates when new versions of the OS are rolled out. Similarly, mobile web and hybrid apps also need to be updated when new versions of the release, but the mobile browser or the shell makes this task easier.

Development process

Since mobile web and hybrid apps are typically built using HTML, CSS, and Javascript, their development process closely mirrors the website development process. Developers can leverage an array of libraries and hybrid app frameworks to develop an app for specific or multiple platforms.

However, the options are limited when it comes to native app development. In this case, cross-platform deployment requires separate applications for each platform. Thus, the development process becomes time-consuming and expensive in the case of native apps.

Offline functionality

Native apps can easily store and retrieve data on the devices so that users can access them even when they don’t have an internet connection. Similarly, hybrid apps can function without the internet because they run in a native shell. However, most web applications face difficulty in functioning when there is no internet connectivity.

Time-to-Market and Distribution Method

Mobile web and hybrid apps have faster time-to-market as compared to native apps. Besides, a hybrid app can easily be distributed like a native app (via an app store or direct download) or mobile web app (via web browsing). Thus, we can say a single codebase has ample benefits when it comes to go-to-market time and easy distribution.

Final Words

The final decision depends on your business goals and requirements. But hybrid app development is the only approach that can yield you the benefits of both the mobile web and native apps. Faster time-to-market, lower development and maintenance costs, wider audience reach, and intuitive features and UX are some of the advantages of hybrid apps. So, if you think hybrid apps can suffice your business requirements and yield you intended outcomes, approach the experts of our hybrid app development company.

Top 7 Benefits of Hybrid Mobile App Development to Businesses

Posted on by Abhishek Kalyan

In this age of technological growth, the demand for mobile apps has increased drastically. They help businesses to gain a much-needed competitive edge in the market and drive their growth. Thus, mobile apps have evolved from being a simple app to a mission-critical platform.

Mobile applications are generally categorized into two types – Native app and Hybrid app. The choice of the app depends on business goals and user expectations. While Native apps are developed for a specific platform, hybrid mobile apps are known for their adaptability across various platforms. This concept boils down to building a single application that operates seamlessly on Android and iOS.

Below, we have outlined the key benefits of hybrid mobile app development and why it is a perfect fit for your business.

Advantages of a Hybrid App to Businesses

Low cost

Since hybrid app development is a unified approach, you don’t have to spend separately for creating different apps for different platforms. Hybrid app frameworks allow developers to build a single app version, along with writing and maintaining individual codebases for multiple platforms. Thus, this approach can help you save a significant amount of money.

Another secret benefit of this approach is that you can release the MVP to hit the market before your competitors.

Native Experience with Simple Backend

A hybrid app provides excellent user experience like a native app, along with simplifying the backend structure. You can consult with a hybrid app development company to choose the best hybrid framework and create a UX that connects to device-specific functionalities. Also, the UX of a hybrid app stays seamless while fixing bugs and updating the app, and users feel no difference if they shift from one device platform to another.

Enhanced UI/UX

Consistent performance and attractive designs are two key elements that drive more users to an application. With hybrid mobile app development, you can ensure appealing and intuitive UI/UX on each platform. Due to this, these apps are more welcomed to the app store and play store than native apps. Moreover, users don’t encounter issues like low performance or loading time while using a hybrid app. This makes the hybrid app a preferable choice for businesses that seek maximum user engagement on both Android and iOS operating systems.

High-Speed Performance

Hybrid applications have set mighty standards in terms of speed and performance. In fact, they run even faster than responsive and progressive apps, owing to no dependency on network communication. Besides, a hybrid app exhibits high speed on all devices, even if there is a massive amount of traffic. For instance, Twitter and LinkedIn, which handle an overwhelming amount of users, have proven their high speed and performance standards.

Offline Support

Like Native apps, hybrid applications also use the device’s API to store useful data offline. This feature benefits those users who have limited data consumption plans, live in underdeveloped areas, or have a connection that often gets interrupted. With offline usage capabilities of a hybrid app, users can still access some of the app’s features even if there is no internet connection. Thus, they can use your mobile app without frustration.

Ease of Integration

Since hybrid apps use the device’s programming language to synchronize with other compatible applications, developers don’t have to face hassles associated with the integration. As a result, hybrid applications work perfectly with cameras, messaging, GPS, and other device’s environment to deliver the best user experience. This can also contribute to enhancing users’ satisfaction as well as their reliability on your app.

Easy Maintenance

Easy maintenance is another advantage of hybrid mobile app development. For native applications, the app developers have to introduce new versions with each update. Also, users have to update their apps with the release of every new version. However, a hybrid app avoids versioning and makes app maintenance as easy as updating a web page, that too, in real-time.

Final Words

Due to the fierce competition in the market today, it is imperative to invest in the approach that demands lower cost and offers more benefits. Hybrid apps not only resolve the issue of targeting different platforms with different apps but also help in finding the quickest spot in the online app store market. So, if you want to stay unparalleled and grow exponentially, collaborate with an experienced hybrid app development company.

How the Surge in Hybrid apps will Shape the App Development Market

Posted on by Abhishek Kalyan

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. 

hybrid app development
hybrid app development

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.

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