Top 5 Benefits of Hybrid Mobile App Development
08 Nov. 2017 Mobile App
Over the past two decades, consumers as well as enterprises have become increasingly comfortable searching and buying products and services online. In many cases, businesses are going an extra mile to get their customers to discover products and services on the web and mobile devices. Extending consumer reach has become the need of the hour; the reason why building hybrid mobile application seems like a logical move to many.
Initially, when mobile app development was a novel idea, it was preferred to develop mobile apps native. However, with the growth in mobile users, app usage, and device fragmentation, they have come to realize the benefits of multi platform application development. Hybrid mobile apps, necessarily, fall in the middle of the native and web app spectrum. They manifest the user experience properties of both native and web, providing a variety of sublime benefits like:
- Reduced Development Costs: Building a hybrid mobile app is relatively cheaper and gets the task done sooner than any native or web mobile app. In the fiercely competitive digital era where ‘time to market’ has become critical than ever, cost efficiency plays a vital role in helping enterprises build and get their product to the market in no time. With the help of a set of libraries and various development frameworks such as Xamarin and PhoneGap, hybrid app developers can accelerate the development process and submit the app to various app stores to apparently save both time and cost.
- Improved UI/UX: A consistent user experience across multiple mobile platforms is one of the main reasons behind hybrid app’s popularity. Users expect the app to be instantly responsive on different devices and deliver a glitch-free experience. Hybrid apps are based on the idea of “information is just a tap away”. And while it displays data faster and adjusts to different device screen configurations immediately, it also resolves the issues of the fluctuating data streaming capabilities. Being lightweight, the hybrid app UI can also load the high-definition graphics and content quickly.
- Ease of Integration: Like native apps, hybrid apps leverage the device’s internal programming system through an overlay which helps to enable seamless synchronization with other compatible apps. This reduces the integration issues for developers. In turn, the hybrid apps work well with the device’s native applications such as camera, messaging, GPS, etc. to ensure a smooth user experience.
- Offline Support: Hybrid apps store the device’s API to save offline data that helps to load the application quickly. It partially stores information that the users can access at the time of poor or no connectivity. Since a majority of users want to reduce their mobile data consumption and have an uninterrupted access to app’s data, a hybrid app is capable of providing just that – offline app accessibility without performance glitches. It is one of the primary reasons why hybrid mobile apps are the best when compared to native mobile apps.
- Simplified Maintenance: Unlike a web application, a hybrid app is designed to make use of all the features available in the mobile device. Though native apps also utilize all the device features, maintaining it is quite a challenge for users and developers alike. Developers have to roll out new updates in the form of new versions and users are required update the app every time a new version is launched. A hybrid app bypasses versioning and makes app maintenance as simple as updating a web page, that too in real time. This level of flexibility further facilitates the scalability needs of an enterprise.
Conclusion
A mobile app is an imperative tool for every enterprise to penetrate the market quickly and stay competitive. And a hybrid app solution makes this task a whole lot easier and faster. Giants like Uber, Twitter, and Instagram have already leveraged the advantages of hybrid mobile app development. If you too are looking to capitalize through a hybrid app of your own, connect with our experts now to discuss the requirements.
