What And How The Major Types Of Mobile Apps Are

by Neha Sharma Digital marketing head

Planning to develop a mobile app for your business, and you want to know, clear cut, what the options are, and their pros and cons -- to decide which one would be the best for you.

We know this scenario long and deep enough to be able to come to your point, without wasting a moment.

There are THREE major types of Mobile Apps:

i. Web

ii. Native

iii. Hybrid

Let us find out the basics about each one of them.

Ø Web Apps are, in essence, websites that seem like Native Apps. They are hosted on web browsers. Users interact with web apps through a webview. Web apps are

ü Inexpensive

ü Easy to build

ü Easy to maintain

ü Do not take up storage on the device of the user

ü Do not need to be downloaded from app stores

ü Load in browsers such as Safari, Chrome, Firefox

On the flip side,

o They need web browsers

o They are a lot slower when compared to Native Apps

o Less intuitive and interactive than Native Apps

o Cannot leverage device utilities.

Ø Native Apps, built for specific platforms, are written in languages that those platforms can accept. For iOS apps the language can be Objective-C or Swift, and for Android apps it can be Kotlin or Java. Native apps

ü Offer intuitive user input-output

ü Are fast and responsive

ü Are distributed in app stores

ü Offer good UX (User Experience)

ü Give the best performance

On the flip side,

o They are more expensive to develop in comparison to other app options

o They can take a long time to develop

o Need very experienced developers

o Not a good idea for apps that are very simple

Ø Hybrid Apps are a combination of Web Apps and Native Apps. Hybrid apps have two parts: The back-end code, and a native shell. The native shell can be downloaded and using a webview, can load the code. Hybrid Apps

ü Do not need a browser

ü Are much less expensive than Native Apps

ü Can leverage device APIs

ü All platforms can do with one app

ü Can get developed faster than a Native App

On the flip side,

o They are not customizable to individual platforms

o They are much slower than Native Apps

o Cost more than Web Apps

o Bug fixing can be more difficult

It is important that you know the strengths and weaknesses of each type of mobile apps, before you choose a particular one to develop your business with. Of course, we, at Ascentspark, can certainly give you a helping hand there – and you are most welcome to get in touch with us for a free consultation, anytime.

After all, choosing the right kind of mobile app development is the base of your mobile strategy, on which would rest the fate of your business goals.