App confusion? 5 ways to build a mobile application

What are your app options?

Who doesn’t want a  simpler option to build your loyal fanbase?

We do build plenty of apps.

Desktop apps, web apps, and smart phone apps….

Are you interested in having an app built for your company?

One of the things that we’ve learned is that, when things are new, we have a lot of options.

And choosing which platform to build an app on is particularly confusing.

Since we are a website company, strategically, we are
drawn towards using techniques that are available everywhere, every platform and device.

But here’s the rub.

Apps run FASTER in most cases then website apps.

This is good for the user.  And that’s what matter’s most.

 

There are ways to make your app build MORE compatible with MORE devices to be accessible to MORE people.

The key here is to make the app EASY for the consumer to use.

There is plenty of information here, but to find the techniques that will be the best fit for your unique case, pleasecall us so we can get a better understanding of your projects. then we can make recommendations on the best way to proceed.

Without knowing what it is you’re trying to build, we can go over 100s of techniques to build an app.

And, most likely, they are not going to be a fit for you.

For instance, on the smart phone today, their are a top 5 ways to make an app…

Wait, there are 5 ways?

Yes.

Actually there are more then that. (I told you it was confusing.)

But again, we believe these are the best options out there. The biggest thing that steers most with there decision is their technical familiarity, and as long as it fits your customer’s needs, isn’t that all that matters?

Now then, to keep you’re life simple, we shouldn’t need to hop throughout different development environments (knows as IDEs to us geeks) to build these apps. Most of the code is either JavaScript or something with a much similar syntax. So you could easily use a free editor like NotePad ++ or Atom to build your code files for any of these platforms mentioned.

For purposes of this post, we are ONLY talking about developing custom iPhone and Android apps.

(This should be as no surprise since iPhone and Android phones are, by FAR the most popular mobile devices out there.)

Ready? Here we go….

#1 Full Native by Google and Apple

This is the ‘approved’ development environment by Google and Apple.

This means using the XCode system to make your apps on the iPhone and iPad.

Or using the Android Studio to make your apps for the Android.

The good part is that it’s full native and supported by the same company that makes the OS

The bad is there’s no code shared between android and iOS.

2 things to manage.

And believe me, there are a lot of OTHER companies ready to solve this problem. The next 4 options that have some serious code sharing between the iPhone and Android platforms:

#2 Xamerin by Microsoft

Microsoft bought this company called Xamerin to work with it’s Visual Studio system.

Do you like Microsoft stuff like Visual Studio and C Sharp?

Now you can create an app and export a package that can be installed as an iPhone or Android app.

This is relatively new. For those who are heavily invested in Visual Studio from Microsoft, this might be worth looking at.

#3 React Native by Facebook

Yes, Facebook is in the app development business too now. And it creates it’s own toys.

This framework sits on top of a javascript library called Node.js, a host side, compiled instance of Javascript.

For those of you who know and like Node.js, this is probably worth looking at for you. We use this and have found that 90% of the code can be share between iPhone and Android. And it’s full native. It is rather new however, only released in 2013 and the updates are dramatically changing the way to code works. So the patience in using this today is not for the faint at heart. But it is based on some of the latest and smartest methods that we’ve seen.

#4 Appcelerator Titanium by Apache

Introduced in December of 2008, appcelrator is by far the most mature javascript code base to create full native apps. Business insider estimates that 10% of all apps are built on Appcelerator. If you’re looking for a mature option, appcelerator is a good choice. Although we question how much innovation is being put into this framework going forward.

#5 Cordova by Apache (formerly PhoneGap)

PhoneGap is a fun option. Why? Because it’s an app that’s considered a hybrid app. That is, it’s half native calling native api’s of the phone (such as  menu calls), and half running like a website with html and being served by web services.

In truth, any app that needs to call data will need a web service on the back end. There are some strong options for this sort of thing (for platforms on top of Node.js, we like StrongLoop) But PhoneGap has been winning awards since 2009 (People’s Choice Award at O’Reilly Media’s 2009 Web 2.0 Conference) And it has been strongly regarded since.

Granted, a lot of the screens are completely served in the cloud and not much more efficient then a standard website (depending on how it is written, it might easily perform worse) But PhoneGap is so solid and so familiar by so many developers, that we still recommend this platform as the most cost efficient one to consider for most app building situations.

So there you have it! 5 solid options.

So, which one is best?

That depends of course.

But we believe the most important factors to keep in mind are:

• Will it be useful and used by your audience to qualify its existence?
• Is your technical talent agile enough to meet your growing business needs with this platform?

There is no question, improvements will need to get out.

Are you ready to answer your customer’s call?

WestBay WebSites is a Palm Harbor based media tech company. We are heavily invested in taking care of your communications in the fast changing, distracting and noisy world that we share.

Want to learn more? Contact us or call 727-776-9248 (WAIT )