Mobile Apps: Native or Not?

My deck from the Emerging Tech Meetup at Cantina on February 29th, 2012. You might also want to check out http://speakerdeck.com/u/matthewcrist/p/tools-of-the-mobile-web, which was also presented at the meetup

Transcript

1. Mobile Apps: Native or Not? George White Technical Architect, Cantina @stonehippo george@cantina.co Friday, March 2, 12
2. We hear this a lot: “should we build a native app or an HTML5 web app?” Friday, March 2, 12
3. tl;dr: It depends quite a bit on the context and requirements of your app Friday, March 2, 12
4. What are your options? Friday, March 2, 12
5. Native apps Friday, March 2, 12
6. Mobile web apps Friday, March 2, 12
7. Hybrids (and MEAPs) Friday, March 2, 12
8. Please take note: for end users hybrid = native Friday, March 2, 12
9. So hybrid apps must feel native, or users are going to be turned off Friday, March 2, 12
10. And “feeling native” means fast, responsive and only classy violation of native defaults* * it does not have to mean cloning UI elements. I’m looking at you, Sencha. Friday, March 2, 12
11. The decision about how to implement your app is driven by several factors Friday, March 2, 12
12. Requirements must drive the decision and you have several decision gates to go through Friday, March 2, 12
13. BTW: “native” on the next few slides sometimes means “and hybrids, too” Friday, March 2, 12
14. Is you application “processor intensive”? Friday, March 2, 12
15. Advantage: native Friday, March 2, 12
16. Do you need high-performance graphics? Friday, March 2, 12
17. Advantage: native For now. WebGL support and improved hardware acceleration is closing this gap and will only get better in the next couple of years. Friday, March 2, 12
18. Do you need offline capabilities? Friday, March 2, 12
19. Advantage: native But you can do some cool offline stuff with web apps on some platforms! And if Chrome ever gets over the 5MB limitation thing, this could go away Friday, March 2, 12
20. Do you need secure local storage of data? Friday, March 2, 12
21. Advantage: native Friday, March 2, 12
22. Do you need the ability to immediately update your app remotely? Friday, March 2, 12
23. Advantage: mobile web apps, server-driven MEAPs Friday, March 2, 12
24. Is this app being built on top of an existing system? Friday, March 2, 12
25. Advantage: I wish I knew. If that existing system as well-crafted, mobile-friendly Web services, then just about any of the options is going to work. And in the real world, you probably going to feel some pain no matter what. Friday, March 2, 12
26. Do you need access to the camera or other device hardware? Friday, March 2, 12
27. Advantage: native But don’t assume you can’t go web app. Some device APIs are available for many mobile web browsers, e.g., GeoLocation Friday, March 2, 12
28. Do you need or want to be in an app store? Friday, March 2, 12
29. Advantage: native Friday, March 2, 12
30. Do you hate bureaucracy? Friday, March 2, 12
31. Advantage: mobile web apps Friday, March 2, 12
32. What platform(s) do you want to be on? Friday, March 2, 12
33. Advantage: not really clear. The problem here is that it’s too context-dependent. Not all mobile web browsers are created equal, and there are things you can do with one that you can only dream of with the others. Friday, March 2, 12
34. How much code do you want to write to support multiple platforms? Friday, March 2, 12
35. Advantage: anything but pure native Friday, March 2, 12
36. Developer skill set (this one is less important than you might think) Friday, March 2, 12
37. Yes, it can be expensive for you team to learn the skills required to do native development Friday, March 2, 12
38. and if your team is made of up web developers, mobile web apps may reduce time to develop your apps Friday, March 2, 12
39. But learning is good :) Friday, March 2, 12
40. And you’ll have a team that will understand your target devices that much better Friday, March 2, 12
41. In the end, remember: It’s a false choice Friday, March 2, 12
42. “Pure” native can still use the web: web views allow native apps to make use of web content Friday, March 2, 12
43. and many native apps are driven by web services Friday, March 2, 12
44. Device APIs will close some of the gaps between native and the mobile web Friday, March 2, 12
45. But adoption is slow and spotty Friday, March 2, 12
46. Also, the context of your audience and business needs may require both native and web-delivered apps Friday, March 2, 12
47. What about cost? Friday, March 2, 12
48. For apps to roughly equal complexity it turns out to be the same* *This might not be true for MEAPS Friday, March 2, 12
49. Want to chat about this some more? George White Technical Architect @stonehippo george@cantina.co Friday, March 2, 12