Developing a mobile app has become imperative to successfully run a business in today’s cut-throat market competition. Whether small or large, every business feels the need for mobile app development at some point. Nevertheless, the requirements might be different based on the industry-specific use cases and value proposition. Besides, there is not a one-size-fits-all approach to build a mobile app since you have to comply with the standards imposed by native platforms.
When you make up your mind to develop a mobile app, it normally comes down to three options i.e native app, progressive web app, or hybrid app. Understandably, developing native apps is a complex and time-consuming process, not to mention the steep financial requirements. It is because you have to develop the app from scratch for each native platform. Although there are several cross-platform tools available to speed up the process, developers need to work on every functionality to make it work across multiple platforms.
All things considered, hybrid mobile app development seems to be the most effective and cost-efficient way to build an app that would run across multiple platforms. Besides, it provides a host of benefits to enterprises in the form of high-speed performance, offline usage, and high scalability.
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A hybrid app is a mix of both native and web-based applications, intended to deliver consistent user experiences across multiple platforms. It is essentially a web app having several native qualities, making it accessible across all native mobile platforms. The hybrid apps are accessible via native web browsers across all compatible smartphones and deliver native app-like experiences. Hybrid apps are built using special types of frameworks like Flutter, Ionic, and React Native. These apps use some of the device’s native features and facilitate smooth interactions between the app’s interface and mobile hardware. Nevertheless, hybrid mobile app development requires cross-platform APIs and developers who are proficient in languages like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
Here, we shall explore the significance of hybrid mobile app development as well as the benefits it brings to the table.
A hybrid app combines the features of both native and web apps, thus ensuring that users get native app-like experiences right from the start. Besides, hybrid apps remain responsive across different browsers and instantly adapt to new screens and varying device configurations. Above all, hybrid mobile app development delivers consistent user experiences across a wide range of mobile devices.
Hybrid apps are increasingly responsive and lightweight, thus they load quickly even with high-definition graphics. Besides, hybrid mobile app development delivers consistent user experiences across all devices which is not possible with native apps. We often observe major performance gaps between the Android and iOS versions of the same application. It is mainly because of the underlying codebase and the use of native platform tools for development. On the contrary, a hybrid application would deliver consistent performance across all devices including Android and iOS smartphones.
A native mobile app requires a stable internet connection at all times unless you configure it specifically for offline usage. However, most business applications require real-time data access, thus internet connectivity is a must. That said, hybrid applications render seamless access to the app data while supporting offline usage when the internet connection goes down. The app data would automatically update once you are back online.
As compared to their native counterparts, hybrid apps are relatively easy to maintain and incur minimal maintenance costs. Developing native apps means you have to manage the Android and iOS app separately, not to mention the attention required towards the web app. Whereas, with hybrid mobile app development, you have a single app running across multiple platforms. Therefore, hybrid apps are easy to maintain while keeping the maintenance costs to a minimum.
Other limitations with native apps are the platform-specific constraints that make it difficult to integrate third-party applications. A native app would only support other apps running on the same OS, thus third-party integration is fairly limited. A hybrid app, however, is free from any such limitations and provides APIs for seamless integration with a variety of web apps. Similarly, it easily consumes APIs from other third-party apps, allowing users to access their features from the given interface.
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Mobile app development has become an inevitable need for businesses to sustain the intensifying market competition. That said, hybrid mobile app development is an ideal solution for small and medium-sized enterprises having limited resources and financial constraints. Evidently, developing a hybrid app would save them a fortune and yet offer all the benefits of a native app. Hybrid apps are relatively easy to maintain with considerably low maintenance costs involved. It is, therefore, a perfect solution for SMBs to strengthen their digital presence and expand their reach across the mobile market.
We, at Oodles ERP, provide complete enterprise solutions to address the industry-specific needs of our customers. Our development team uses the latest tech stack and agile methodologies to build feature-rich business applications for the web and mobile platforms. We provide cross-platform mobile app development services to build high-quality apps for native and hybrid and web platforms. Our custom hybrid mobile app development services cater to the diverse business needs of our customers while delivering engaging UX to end-users. For more information, reach out to us at [email protected].