Application Development
Mobile application development is the set of processes and procedures involved in writing software for small, wireless computing
devices. Like Web application development, mobile application development has its roots in more traditional software development.
One critical difference, however, is that Mobile apps are often written specifically to take advantage of the unique features a particular mobile device offers.
App Development Process
* Idea Generation & Validation
* Designing the App
* Developing the App
* Testing the App
* Launching the App
* Marketing & Maintaining the App
Types of Mobile Apps by Technology
There are three basic types of mobile apps if we categorize them by the technology used to code them:
* Native appsare created for one specific platform or operating system.
* Web appsare responsive versions of websites that can work on any mobile device or OS because they’re delivered using a mobile browser.
* Hybrid appsare combinations of both native and web apps, but wrapped within a native app, giving it the ability to have its own icon or be downloaded from an app store.
Native App
Native apps are built specifically for a mobile device’s operating system (OS). Thus, you can have native Android mobile apps or native IOS apps, not to mention all the other platforms and devices. Because they’re built for just one platform, you cannot mix and match – say, use a Blackberry app on an Android phone or use an IOS app on a Windows phone.
Technology Used: Native apps are coded using a variety of programming languages. Some examples include: Java, Kotlin, Python, Swift, Objective-C, C++, and React.
Hybrid App
And then there are the hybrid apps. These are web apps that look and feel like native apps. They might have a home screen app icon, responsive design, fast performance, even is able to function offline, but they’re really web apps made to look native. Technology Used: Hybrid apps use a mixture of web technologies and native APIs. They’re developed using: Ionic, Objective C, Swift, HTML5, and others.