Native apps on mobile platforms are a great way for developers to bring web content to mobile phones.

However, due to constant upgrades and fragmentation in the mobile hardware and software industry, to reach the widest possible audience a developer creating a native app for use on different mobiles would have to create separate apps for iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7, Blackberry and Symbian. This is a costly and lengthy process and not a long term solution as the operating systems are always changing.

You can dramatically save costs on using native app developers by taking our iPhone App Training Course which teaches delegates how to build iOS5 apps from scratch. We will shortly be adding courses for native apps on other mobile operating systems so keep your eyes peeled.

We are currently looking for iOS and Android App Development Trainers

Google is championing web apps, with CEO Eric Schmidt claiming an unexpectedly high increase in mobile web traffic as people demand content instantly and on the move. So why exactly are many developers switching to web-apps in favour of native apps?

What is a Web App?

A native phone app has to be downloaded on to your device from an online store (like Apple’s App Store, or the Android App Market)

A web app is a website that can be accessed via your phone’s standard web browser that looks and behaves like a native app – but doesn’t have to be installed locally. HTML5 is making it easier for developers to make web apps that behave more like native apps.

What Skills do you need to develop Web Apps?

Web App basics  - With the above three skill you could become a static website developer or a front end developer

1. HTML 5 – see our HTLM5 training
2. CSS3 – see our CSS3 Training
3. JavaScript – see our JavaScript training

Web Apps for the more advanced – With these two skills you could become web developer.

1. SQL database – see our SQL training
2. Server-side language : PHP( other options are JSP/ASP/PERL/RUBY choice is yours, as all the fight for best happens here) – see our PHP training, ASP training, PHP MySQL training, Ruby on the rails Training,

 

Why use Web Apps?

Web-apps provide a cross platform solution for developers, one app for all systems instead of the one app, one system approach of native apps. Smashing Magazine put it succinctly as ‘design and develop once, deploy everywhere.’ Using HTML5, developers save a great deal of time and money by only creating the app once and using tools that were once only available to native apps.

There are a few examples where web-based apps are as good as, if not better, than their native counterparts. YouTube’s mobile app acts in a similar way to the various native apps on offer while Amazon’s Cloud Reader is promoted by Trending News as a way of leaving native apps behind. While Amazon’s app is almost identical in functionality to their native iPad Kindle app there is one major difference – you can buy books.

The reason Amazon allows the purchasing of books on their web app and not their native app is another cost saving exercise. Apple’s rules mean they gain a 30% cut from anything purchased through their App store. By using a web app only to sell books then Amazon gain all revenue from their sales, a positive for any company. LA Times Blog calls this the ‘Apple Tax’ and believes that other companies will find ways to bypass paying Apple money just to use their web store. Google has a similar set up with Android Market, also taking 30% of any app sales and so for anyone looking to make money through mobile apps the only way to bypass losing a chunk of profit is to create a web app.

Why Develop Native Apps Then?

So far so good for web based apps, so why are native apps still so popular? Smashing Magazine suggests that users place a lot of trust in App Store and Android Market, feeling safe giving out personal and financial information and that this trust is yet to spread to web apps as an industry trusted web store is yet to appear.

However the increased popularity of the Chrome Web Store (which only takes a 5% cut from apps) may change this. Another negative from SM is that web apps are not as ‘sexy’ as their native counterparts with restrictions in content. Information Week goes some way to explain this as native apps run faster, have been development tools, higher file storage and developers have access to mobile capabilities before web apps. At the time of writing for these articles native apps still had the upper hand in looks and feel although thanks to HTML5 web apps seem to have caught up in all these flaws and so the combination of the functionality of native apps and cheaper costs mean that web apps are on the rise.

With Google CEO Eric Schmidt championing web apps while Apple’s Steve Jobs is steadfastly backing native apps we will have to wait and see which comes out on top or if they can find a way to work together as a hybrid way of accessing web content on our mobile phones.

Guest Blog by Craig Charley

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Amazon, Android Apps, HTML5, html5 training, iOS Apps, iPhone Apps, Mobile App Development, Native Apps, Native Apps vs Web Apps, Web Apps, What is a Web App, Why Use Web Apps, YouTube

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