Gadgetory

this episode of Android Weekly is brought to you by domain.com I once heard mobile apps described as the suburbs of the internet because mother Google and daddy Apple have a stranglehold on what we can see and use but what if you could enjoy a great user experience on any device online or offline and not have to trust a virus Laden suspicious look an app store you know what that is now what I'm talking about here is native mobile apps versus html5 web apps and let's start with definitions a native app for the purposes of today's show refers to an application built completely using technologies native to a particular operating system this could be Android iOS Windows or Blackberry for Android native apps are typically built using Java while for iOS a native app can be built using objective-c or more recently Swift so the vast majority of apps that you use on your phone are from the Google Play Store hence they are native mobile apps an html5 app on the other hand refers to a mobile app built completely using HTML CSS and JavaScript only html5 apps are web apps and they must be run using the underlying OS browser note that html5 supports offline data as well as rich media such as audio and video a well-written html5 app can be used even when the device is offline or at very least show an error message now I know what you're thinking you're thinking Jase why should I care well Google and Apple have near complete control over what you and I can do and consume on our own devices forget the social and economic implications and let's just talk about the stranglehold or bottleneck on technical innovation when it comes to mobile apps that should be a concern for you because Google and Apple decide which app is distributed and which app isn't that's concerning now an html5 app free of any App Store is more of a meritocracy but let's talk about some of the practical issues pros and cons here we go first let's talk portability html5 apps are portable across different os's and device types an html5 app written with responsive design methods would also scale appropriately depending on the size of the device it is currently being viewed on when an update is required this single app is updated and tested and is available for all devices you need Italy ah now see all of you waiting for your more recent Android update should be gushing at that now native apps by definition are unique to each operating system and so to support multiple os's a separate app must be written for each OS when an update is required each app must be updated independently and tested independently Android apps do not modify the layout to match the size of the device automatically however during development different layouts can be specified for different screen sizes and orientations this usually results in layouts that are more aesthetically pleasing compared to an automatic responsive design on an html5 app now the winner here is html5 now let's talk cheddar and the costs of development html5 apps are generally cheaper to develop and maintain than native apps since just the single app is required for multiple OS support this single app can be developed by a single web developer however native apps for all major os's would typically require a specialized developer for each OS Java for Android Objective C and Swift for OS c-sharp for Windows which would significantly be more expensive than a single web developer now the winner here is html5 now you speed hogs are wondering yeah but what about speed and efficiency native apps are almost always more efficient and faster than html5 apps despite the strides made in increasing the speed of JavaScript interpreters and html5 app cannot execute at the same speed as a native app of similar functionality Apple's App Store can reject apps for being too slow or not feeling native enough which is more likely to occur with an html5 app than a fully native app and the winner here is clearly native now what about hardware native apps can interact with a wide range of the hardware available on a device including location camera accelerometer speakers screen and more html5 apps do not have the same ability to interact with the hardware which can be a major deal-breaker depending on the desired functionality of the app here the winner is clearly native but what if you could fuse the two into a hybrid that'd be a beast hybrid apps are built using a language framework and are then wrapped with native specific code for each desired mobile OS for example you build an app using html5 CSS and JavaScript and then generate a wrapper around the app for Android iOS and Windows devices the final product is to all intents and purposes a native app for each platform however they share a single codebase now that sounds pretty cool right in most cases you can take your codebase and port it to multiple platforms pretty fascinating stuff however you still are under the yoke of Google and Apple hmm now the obvious thing to be said here is that if you are planning to make a graphic intensive game or app of some sort you absolutely want to go with a native app html5 is just not fast enough to support that kind of intensive gaming so why talk about this at all well this is going to have a pretty profound effect on how you consume and we produce media for decades broadcast media had the infrastructure to make hundreds of billions of dollars off their sinead work shows now there's no infrastructure we're figuring it out how is it going to work in a way that's good for both you the viewer or reader and us the publisher so let's talk about it in the comments below how best do you think we can make money or how best will new media make money in the future we'd love to hear your feedback I'll be reading them in the comments below so a quick update on my brother and Android Hindi you see Joe didn't actually know that I used our own coupon code Android to buy the domain name don't be cute he threw fruit comm because I have faith that when you take a dot-com and the Android army both magic can happen why because no domain name extension tells your story with the same level of trust as a.com or.net domain name dot-com and dotnet domain name extensions and Jack credibility into your online presence and who doesn't want more credibility you can save 15% on domain name and web hosting when you use our coupon code Android at domain.com check out don't forget 15% off when you use our coupon code Android when you think domain names think domain.com thanks for watching android army my name is Jace I'd love to connect with you right here on Google+ or Twitter and I'll be following you in the comments below you don't want to forget about my brothers nandroid all working hard to be your source for all things Android