Hybrid Apps frameworks, are they the future?
“You are hooked on your mobile all day” How many times have we heard that phrase over the last ten years? Our generation has discovered possibly the greatest technological, social, and recreational revolution in history: smartphones. And they are the most versatile tool of our lives. Although you will know the definition very well, we repeat it: a smartphone is any mobile device that serves both as a telephone and a computer.
The current smartphone market has many manufacturers from all over the globe, but the true kings of the industry are the operating systems. Specifically two: iOS and Android. Developed by Apple and Google respectively, they have surpassed the competition and become the development base for all mobile applications on the planet.
The importance of Apps today
According to Statista, mobile app downloads during 2021 were 230 billion worldwide. a very remarkable growth compared to 2016 (141 billion downloads). descargas de Apps móviles durante 2021 fueron de 230 mil millones mundialmente. Un crecimiento muy notable con respecto a 2016 (141 mil millones de descargas).
It is, therefore, a market in constant expansion. As we mentioned at the beginning of our article on App Insights, applications are the functional basis of our devices, because they eliminate the intermediary that (before accessing the web browser).
They also integrate more fully with all other apps. For example, Spotify joins Shazam or your social networks to help you discover music, or Outlook connects directly with your other Office applications to jump between services when you need them.
The hybrid development framework
A quick technical definition of a hybrid app is that it’s an HTML5 web app that we store in a native container. Usually written with CSS3, HTML5 and JavaScript. And compiled on Android or iOS. We could say that they are web applications that change their wrapper.
So we no longer have to sit around waiting for load times and watch all the mechanics on screen while it loads. We now have this application wrapper that hides the web formatting and Plug-ins behind a nice interface with little waiting time.
What are the advantages of hybrid development?
First of all, note that we have to choose the most appropriate strategy weighing all the factors for development such as:
- What budget do I have?
- Do I have enough time to adapt the application to a single OS?
- What OS does my target audience use?
- Do we have enough experience with the problems that may arise?
But before answering these questions, you should know that:
- Native app development is more expensive than hybrid apps, and they typically require less maintenance.
- Native apps take longer to update from servers.
- Hybrid apps often encourage better user experiences since they are lighter. Which leads to faster loading times and fewer crashes. We already discussed the importance of the User Experience.
- Integration with web-based services is more functional.
Also, because we code in common languages, it is easy to reuse the code. They can also operate offline (although they are not real-time data) and have a very different life cycle than native apps.
The development of hybrid applications for the coming years
It is difficult to predict the future of these development formats: they may become basic tools for all workers, or OSes may make it easier to code applications (encouraging exclusivity). Although we can tell you that it is important to know all the possible tools because you never know when you may need one of them in particular.
In this article, you will find very curious data on how hybrid development can evolve within the largest sectors of mobile applications.
We are going to close this article by citing two other very relevant statistics if the importance of applications on our phones has not yet been clear to you:
- 70% of global online traffic comes from apps on Android and iOS
- 87% of mobile users spend their time on apps on their smartphones
If you want to know some tools as first contact, here are links to Flutter and React Native.