Native Apps. vs Web Based Apps.

jeepin81

Out of curiosity... .what do other members on this forum think is the direction of mobile device applications?

Do you think the trend is headed towards building responsive websites and using services like PhoneGrap and Apache Cordova only..... Or, do you think native standing applications we still be the mainstream app. that will be out there.

I personally see things going toward responsive websites(HTML5, CSS, Javascript) and away from native Java apps. for couple of reasons:

Cost of building a site & and app. at the same time
Less time to build
Learning curve
Internet is everywhere - so launching web based is less of an issue
Browser storage

NogDog

If the app's purpose is to emulate what a web site does, you may be right (my 8 Ball says, "Ask again later"), but of course others might still be better as native apps (games?).

Bonesnap

I think it depends on the site/application. From what I have read general websites are better suited for the reactive/responsive approach whereas if the goal is to create a more native application experience then an app is the way to go.

As for the trend itself... I'm not sure. I think there will be a healthy number of both approaches in the future since there will always be a large number of websites but also as phones get better native apps will perform better and provide better experiences.

Using my workplace as a very small sample size, we have only been asked about an app two or three times, and once we tell the client that it will require much more development time (since you need to develop an app for iOS, Android, Blackberry, etc.) they immediately ask for the reactive/responsive solution.

NogDog

Bonesnap;11044373 wrote:
... and once we tell the client that it will require much more development time (since you need to develop an app for iOS, Android, Blackberry, etc.) they immediately ask for the reactive/responsive solution.

good point

jeepin81

I think w/ services like Apache Cordova it will start to close the gap on native apps. Here is an api list of what you can access via Cordova:

http://cordova.apache.org/docs/en/4.0.0/cordova_plugins_pluginapis.md.html#Plugin%20APIs

I do agree... I think games will probably stick with native dev.