Mobile application and its types

Mobile Application and its types

Mobile Application

A mobile application is a software application designed to run on smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices. They are usually available through application distribution platforms, which are typically operated by the owner of the mobile operating system, such as the Apple App Store, Google Play Store, RIM BlackBerry App World and Windows App Store.

Types of Mobile Applications

There are following types of mobile applications exists:-

1.     Native Application.

2.    Hybrid (Client Server) Application.

3.    Mobile Web Application.

1.     Native Application:-

                    Native applications are built for a specific platform with the platform SDK, tools and languages, typically provided by the platform vendor (e.g. xCode/Objective-C for iOS, Eclipse/Java for Android and BlackBerry, Visual Studio/C# for Windows Phone).

Native applications which can be installed in the devices and the app does not need any data transfer to the server. Without network these apps work in the device. The data about the app will be stored in the device itself. Example gaming applications. Here the device memory and configuration is very important as the app completely dependent on this.

Access device capabilities / Platform affinity

• Single platform affinity 
•  Written with platform SDK’s
• Must be written for each platform
• Access to all native API’s
• Faster graphics performance
• AppStore distribution.

 

Device Access	Speed	Development Cost	App Cost	Approval Process
Full	Very Fast	Expensive	Available	Mandatory

     2. Hybrid (Client Server) Application:- 

                      Hybrid applications can be called Semi native apps. Here the app can be installed in the device and written with web technologies (HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript). But without a network it cannot be launched. Because it gets the data from the server. Without the data the app will not proceed further. Example Commercial apps like banking app. Here you basically can see the form UI but the all the data comes from the server. So the device memory is partially dependent just to install the app as the data comes from the server for every service call.

Access device capabilities / Platform affinity

• Cross platform affinity
•  Written with web technologies (HTML, CSS3 and JavaScript)
•  Runs locally on device, supports offline
• Access to native API’s
• AppStore distribution. 

Device Access	Speed	Development Cost	App Cost	Approval Process
Full	Native speed as necessary	Reasonable	Available	Low overhead

        3. Mobile Web Application:-

  

                         Mobile Web apps are server-side apps, built with any server-side technology (PHP, and, ASP.NET) that render HTML that has been styled so that it renders well on a device form factor.

     Mobile web application can be called as Mobile browser apps as these are not installed in the device. These can be accessed using the mobile browser by hitting the URL of the web. Here the device memory size is not all important as neither of the form or the app data is stored in the device. It is completely dependent on the quality of the browser. Everything comes from the server and rendered in the browser when you hit the URL.

Access device capabilities / Platform affinity

• Cross platform affinity
• Written with web technologies (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, or Server side(PHP, ASP.NET etc.…)
• Runs on web server, viewable on multiple devices
• Centralized updates

Device Access	Speed	Development Cost	App Cost	Approval Process
Partial	Fast	Reasonable	Not	None

Note:- Approval process is mandatory for iPhone, BlackBerry and Windows. Not for Android. Just upload the APK file to play store.

Hope, it will be helpful to know about mobile application and it's types for beginners. If anything is missed or incorrect please update it in comments.