Future of mobile apps

A technology decision that needs to be made early on when developing an app is whether to write it using native or web APIs. Depending on the application, native APIs may be required to meet user expectations. However, for most applications, web technologies consisting of HTML 5, JavaScript, and CSS provide equal user experiences. The advantage of using web APIs is that they are written using web technologies familiar to many developers, which provides an easier and faster development process. Also, since web technologies are standardized, they exhibit fairly consistent behavior across the different mobile platforms available today, such as Android and iOS phones and tablets.

One significant difference between native and web apps is that native apps provide broad access to device features such as the camera and accelerometer, while web apps are limited to what the device’s web browser supports. To bridge this gap between native and web, a new type of app called a hybrid app was created. A hybrid app is written using the same web technologies like HTML 5, JavaScript, and CSS. The hybrid app includes additional code that allows you to call the native APIs from JavaScript. It works by wrapping your web code with a web browser and packaging the two to create a native app.

The hybrid app created a way to develop and deploy them on different platforms like Android and IOS. Phonegap is a popular open source toolkit for building applications. It will become apparent that PhoneGap delivers on the promise of simplified cross-platform mobile app development by allowing you to write your app using HTML, CSS, Javascript and then package it so it can be distributed through the various app stores and marketplaces. With a bit of luck, your app may even become someone’s favorite app. This makes Phonegap the future of mobile applications. Mobile technology professionals will greatly benefit from Phonegap because it provides experienced mobile web developers with everything they need to know to transition their mobile web applications to native mobile applications.

The immediate need for websites in some areas is diminishing rapidly, almost everything is going mobile, not only because everything can do it, but because it has a significant impact on the way we live, work and communicate. Mobile apps have become critical solutions for both businesses and consumers.

Success in the rapidly evolving and ever-changing mobility space should not cause fear and frustration from inaction. Rather, we should embrace technology enablers like PhoneGap to realize truly winning solutions.