This is a question we have been asked many times
over the years and doesn’t seem to be going away. Given the benefits of
HTML5 why not just develop in this format rather than fully native
separately for iOS and Android? Even when we started developing native
apps we were being told that native apps would quickly be made redundant
by HTML5, yet here we are 4 years later with a growing demand for
native app development.
HTML5 is a brilliant way of creating graphically rich, intuitive
applications that can be restructured remotely and deployed on multiple
platforms. However if you think that is the end of the debate then your
would be very wrong; The advent and the widespread use of smartphones
has sparked the development of fully native apps, written platform
specific using the API’s provided by the system. Native apps provide a
level of user experience, performance, monetisation and security not
available though an HTML, browser based web-app. Native app developers
have access to as many as 7000 device capabilities and to features such
as the camera, location, contact lists, calendar, near-field-communication
and local memory to a far greater degree than is possible by HTML5.
Speed
A considerable benefit of native over HTML5 is speed. A native app
doesn’t have the added overhead of having to download the design layer
in addition to its content, it can concentrate on only downloading the
data for the app. In addition much of this content can be cached and
used offline or used whilst the latest data is being downloaded in the
background. As a result native apps load faster regardless of the
strength of your internet connection.
Marketing
One final benefit that is often overlooked in this debate is the
marketing benefit of a native app; the home screen on a person’s
smartphone is a very valuable piece of real estate for a brand. If you
can get your brand on a person’s phone, then they are viewing it many
hundreds (even thousands) of times a week. It is our view that a native
app installed on someone’s phone has huge marketing value to a brand.
Numbers speak
According to aMarch 2013 Compuware Survey, around
85 percent of mobile professionals showed preference
for mobile apps over mobile websites.
This was attributed to the richer user experience that native apps generate.
Most of the apps we produce are given away in the app stores for
free, but a number are paid for apps. According to numbers presented by
this year’s Canalys report, the combined income of native developers stood
at $2.2 billion for Q1 2013. The picture is in stark contrast to the other side with the report suggesting that the monetisation was zero for developers who were creating HTML5 applications.
So there we are, we’re stuck on native apps, we love them and see
that they are here to stay. If you’d like to talk more with us about a
native app for your brand/company then please get in contact with us.
http://www.brightec.co.uk/blog/why-build-native-mobile-app-rather-html5-web-app
No comments:
Post a Comment