What is hybrid apps and why is it easy to setup

                            

Hello guys, today I'm gonna explain what is hybrid applications and how it differs from your actual mobile native applications. The main difference between the hybrid apps and native apps are :

• Hybrid apps are build using web technologies like HTML5, CSS3, JS etc..
• Native apps are build using the language that are used to build apps for your mobile platform.

Unlike native apps, for building hybrid apps, you don't require skills in java or .net or in any other technology to write applications. All you need to learn about is, Web technologies. If you are good at building mobile friendly websites then you are almost there to write a hybrid mobile app regardless what mobile operating system you wanna build for. A hybrid application may not be a webapp always. It depends upon the purpose of the application you are building/using for.

In brief, Native apps are build into machine code by using native languages like, .net on Windows , Java on android and Objective-C on IOS. Native apps take full advantage on your mobile hardware and gives a better performance like in fluid animations etc, than in hybrid apps.

Hybrid apps can be build easily, faster. Hybrid apps are group of webpages that run in your mobile exactly like a native application in native browser such as, WebView in Android, UIWebView in IOS. All these web pages are wrapped into a single native application by using Apache Cordova, Adobe Phonegap etc.

Here are few apps that are build using Adobe Phonegap.

But in Hybrid apps, you can find a little bit lag in using the apps when compared with a native application. Hybrid apps run in native web browser which means, slower performance than a native application. But now a days, by using with better api's in hybrid apps both native and native apps performs almost with same speed.

What is the best platform to use for Hybrid apps ?

Ans: HTML5, CSS3 and JS. You doubt what HTML can do ?

Here are Dos and Don'ts you should know before start developing hybrid apps:

1. Minify HMTL/CSS/JS to Reduce File Size and Improve Performance
2. Do Test for Performance
3. For Data-driven Apps, Do Use Javascript MVC Frameworks Like AngularJS
4. Consider Using a UI Library such as Ionic
5. Take Advantage of Local Storage
6. Consider Learning a Hybrid Development Framework
7. Don’t Use HTML5 for Apps that are Multi-purpose or Complex
8. Don’t Use Heavy Libraries, Frameworks or Plug-ins
9. Don’t Use Hybrid for Animation or Graphic-intensive Apps
10. Don’t Expect Your App to Run Perfectly in both Android and IOS as same.

Hope you guys got a clear idea on hybrid apps and in my next post I will share the code and procedure to develop hybrid apps for all platforms.

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