Hybrid applications – why they work? Their advantages and disadvantages
Due to the ever-increasing popularity of the smartphoneów and tabletów mobile applications have become an inseparable element of our everyday life. Contrary to appearances, however „mobile application” It’s a very complex term, as of today we have several platforms on whichóre we can build mobile applications. The most popular are Google Android, Apple iOS and Microsoft Windows Phone.
There are three types of apps: web apps, hybrid apps, and native apps. Until recently, the first two were treated as inferior, non-functional, budget-friendly ways of producing mobile software, but this is changing every day.
Hybrid apps have been around for a long time, but due to poor engine performanceóin web browsers used on mobile devices could only create very simple applications or they became unwieldy. Today, even devices at the bottom of the póThe mobile apps for the Z generation are made using hybrid technology: they have 2-4 core processors, 2-4 GB of RAM or dedicated GPUs. Add to this the fact that corporations such as Google and Apple are constantly developing their platforms (also in terms of hybrid applications) and today we can already perform most of the existing applications in zaróboth native and hybrid. The growing popularity of hybrid apps can also be seen from the business decisions of the aforementioned corporations. Microsoft has recently released a tool dedicated to developersóIn the hybrid application Visual Studio Tools for Apache Cordova, Google is activelyóGoogle is actively working with Drifty developers on IonicFramework 2.0, któThe IonicFramework 2 is expected to be released alongside the official release of the second version of Angular’a – one of the most popular libraries for creating applications in HTML5 technology developed by Google.
As of today, I can safely say that almost any, even large and demanding projects can be implemented using hybrid technology. Of course, to a large extent it depends on the skills of the programmeróThe most important thing is to know how to optimize the application, but even if you need to hire a developer, you will be able to do it on your own „specialistów of gónline póki” and so it will be a cheaper solution (if we are interested in producing software for more than one mobile platform), and the end user will not notice róThe difference between native and hybrid. An example of this can be found in the applications used by millions of users every dayóin the whole world, whichóThe devices are made with hybrid technology: Instagram, Amazon Appstore, Evernote, TripCase, Sworkit (by 2012, even the official app Facebook The mobile application was written in HTML5 technology).
Using the latest technology in hybrid applications is also no longer a problem. There is a very large base of extensions thatóra is still being developed by theóIn recent weeks Polish mobile industry experts have boldly and seriously proclaimed the abject failure of Bluetooth Smart technology. Creating hybrid applications using NFC technology, systemóIn geo-information, navigation, applications using róThe sensor of any kindó), or even building navigation applications using Bluetooth LE technology and beacons becomes trivial. In case we do not find a suitable solution providing us with access to some native functionality, we can always write part of the hybrid application natively (for those interested: https://cordova.apache.org/docs/en/latest/guide/hybrid/plugins/index.html).
While the use of the latest technologies in hybrid applications is very easy, the same applies to the creation of the graphical interface of applications. Assuming that we are creating a mobile application for two platforms and we intend to support zarówell as a smartphoneóThe only thing you need to do is to use Bluetooth Smart technology in a very easy and, what is the most important, fast wayób to create an application design using HTML and CSS technologies and then adjust it to display on a web browseróResponsive Web Design. We do not need all the work associated with, for example, in the case of Android with Fragments and XML files (if we also assume the production of applications such as. for iOS this work would have to be done twice), and what is most important, we do not need a dedicated developer for a given mobile platform.
Unfortunately there are no perfect solutions, so there are also disadvantages of hybrid solutions. For some time webkit (web browser engine, któWhile the WebGL technology (based on Android, iOS and soon even Windows Phone browsers) can be used on mobile devices, it is still inefficient on most mobile devices – It is only suitable for displaying simple 3D animations or even. The creation of games in hybrid technology can therefore be forgotten for the time being. The second problem, with whichóThe interest that we can meet while creating hybrid applications is the poor performance of the application, whichóIt performs many operations in real time, especially in geoóOnly if these operations are based on native functionalities. In most applications for good programmersóIn most applications for good programmers this will not be a big problem (use of code optimization techniques, algorithmóThe use of cache technology in most cases becomes simpleóI believe hybrid technology will set the standard for mobile software development in the near future. Agumented Reality) will be very hard to do.
To sum up
I believe that hybrid technology will set new standards in the near future when it comes to mobile software production. In recent years, the development ofóThe hybrid technology is huge and the interest we can meet in creating hybrid applicationsóThe popularity of this type of technology is constantly growing. I sincerely recommend all people interested in the production of mobile software to study the topic.