Designing mobile apps for your business can bring a load of benefits. But what platform should you use for development? How can you maximize your investment and minimize the time and resources required? Let’s tackle these questions and look at a few examples.
Today, any company that is creating mobile apps faces an important decision – should you develop in native or HTML5? Both have advantages and disadvantages, so the choice really depends on your requirements and available resources. Certainly, native apps can provide a better user experience, but developing for native usually takes longer and can be more costly. HTML5, on the other hand, allows you to reach a wider market sooner without the restrictions imposed by walled storefronts. So wouldn’t it be great if we could have the best of both worlds? Well, we can with hybrid apps like those built by BlackBerry WebWorks or PhoneGap. A hybrid app is actually a native app that runs on the device, but it is written using web technologies (i.e., HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, Canvas, and others) Since hybrid apps run inside a native container, it can access native device capabilities and leverage native security features. This makes it ideal for most enterprise apps.
