The Value of Mobile Apps

Mobile phones have come a long way, with the first mobile phones not too different from 2-way radios, such as the ones used by police or emergency services; these mobile phones have come to be referred to as Zero Generation (0G), in contrast to today’s mobile phones that are 3G to 5G. Mobile phones continued to advance, with the first downloadable ringtone sold in 1998, and Shigetaka Kurita inventing emojis the following year, then to Nokia’s legendary 3310 that went on to sell more than 126 million units.

From year 2003, the rise of 3G mobile phones gave rise to the age of mobile internet and smartphones, with the first iPhone appearing in year 2007 and Android in 2008. The iPhone and Android mobile phones brought with them the Apple App Store and Google Play Store that would spark a $77 billion mobile app industry. Fast forward to 2022 and smartphones have processing power that is more powerful than the computers that helped guide the Apollo space missions.

Before digging in deeper into the value of mobile apps, it’s important to define what a mobile app is. A mobile app is a software application that runs on a mobile device, such as a smartphone and serves a particular function. Unlike desktop applications that may, at times, be integrated with the environment, mobile applications are usually oriented towards a specific purpose, such as an alarm clock app. Each mobile app is like a module that expands a smartphone’s overall functionality according to the user’s preference. Therefore, mobile apps offer a greater degree of personalization when compared to desktop software because a user can pick the exact apps they want. Some essential mobile apps come preinstalled with the device, but more can be installed by the user from their mobile app store.

It might not be obvious to the end user, but mobile apps are not created the same, and they fall into three main categories: native, web and hybrid. Native apps are apps designed for mobile phones running on a particular platform, such as?Android?or?iOS. Android apps are developed using the?Java?or?Kotlin?programming languages and iOS apps are developed using?Objective-C?or?Swift?languages. Native apps run faster because of their proximity to the mobile device’s hardware and operating system, and are able to take full advantage of almost all the features on a mobile phone, such as camera, microphone, location, biometric sensors, etc. A native app would offer a smoother and more responsive experience, especially for more resource-hungry apps, like games. They are, however, the most expensive to create and maintain, especially because each platform needs its own codebase, so a different app is created for iOS and Android. Therefore, the developers need to keep track of both mobile app versions and maintain both. To maintain apps for different platforms also requires coders who know the different platforms and programming languages, and an additional coordination effort is required to keep both app versions as similar as possible regardless of the platform. In recent years though, there has been an increase in cross-platform native apps; apps that are native and share most of the code base, so that only very little modification has to be made to run the app on more than one platform. The most prominent cross-platform native coding frameworks are?Flutter,?Xamarin?and?React Native. As wonderful as cross-platform might sound, there are situations when the app UI (user interface) might not be consistent with the native platform and there may be slight performance glitches. The cross-platform app might not be consistently compatible with all devices.

Web apps sit on the opposite end to native apps, they are created using?HTML,?CSS, and?JavaScript. Only one codebase needs to be maintained for web apps because the programming language is the same. In a way, web apps are websites that are designed to mimic the behaviour of native apps, are more interactive than static websites, and offer easy navigation on a mobile device. A web app runs on a web browser, like?Safari?or?Chrome, and does not necessarily have to be downloaded. A typical example of a web app is the?Facebook?website when accessed via a mobile phone; it offers interactivity and notifications. However, web apps are unable to take advantage of all the mobile device features, such as accelerometer or biometric, but can access the speaker and touch screen. It is cheaper and quicker to create a web app than a native app and it can be run on any device that has a web browser. Web apps are slower than their native counterparts and are more suitable for information display than specific functionality and an internet connection is needed to access them.

Hybrid apps on the other hand sit in the middle between native apps and web apps. Hybrid apps are downloadable apps that are written in web languages but are able to reside within the mobile device. Unlike web apps, hybrid apps have more access to native mobile device features, such as camera, GPS, microphone, etc. They are, however, slower than native apps and do not offer the same level of performance and are not as consistent with the UI. It is cheaper to develop a hybrid app and it takes a shorter time to develop than native apps because the developer needs to maintain only one codebase for all mobile app platforms. Hybrid apps can be downloaded from a mobile app store and can work without an internet connection. There are different development platforms that are used to develop hybrid apps, but?Cordova?is most notable; the platform allows a hybrid app running on a WebView to access mobile native features just like how a native app would, but using web languages, such as HTML5 and/or JavaScript.

There are a number of factors to consider when choosing the right mobile app development strategy for your next mobile app project. If the mobile app will mostly be for information display with slight interactivity and it must be done on a small budget, with a quick turn around time, then a web app might be the best solution. When the budget is still tight, but the app is less resource intensive and needs to take advantage of native mobile device features, while running on different mobile platforms, then a hybrid app might be the ideal choice. On the other hand, if performance and consistency of UI with the mobile device is of high priority, a native app might be the best route as it assures the highest compatibility with the intended platform, although a different app needs to be created for each platform.

Mobile apps have an edge over websites because of their visibility, accessibility, and convenience for the user. Once an app is downloaded to the mobile device, the user can quickly launch it from a shortcut and immediately start interacting with the app and if the app is native, the experience will be much smoother than the website. Apps also have the advantage of being oriented towards a specific function, such as a fitness app, a trading app, a mobile game, or a tax filing app; whatever the function is, the common factor is that users find them convenient and focused for use. Adding a mobile app to offer a more personalized service or functionality for your clients or employees, could increase interaction with that service, which could translate to increased revenue or brand awareness.?Technolibra?App Development Services offers robust custom mobile app solutions fit for any platform and to answer any business need or goal. Get in touch with?Technolibra?for your next mobile app development project and let us help you build the best app