Introducction#

Nowadays mobiles are not only telephones, they are the most useful and used tool. The mobile development evolution is consequently very fast and the market is very changeable.

Glossary#

Acronyms#

• App: Application.
• GPS: Global Positioning System.
• OS: Operating System.
• SMS: Short Message/Messaging Service.
• STK: SIM Application Toolkit.
• USSD: Unstructured Supplementary Service Data.

Mobile Apps#

One of the most important decisions when developing a mobile app is to decide whether it will be native or web app. Each of these options has its pros and cons.

Native apps#

Native apps run directly on the mobile.

Pros and cons#

Pros: Efficiency.

• Maximum software and hardware utilization: GPS, accelerometers, touchscreen, etc.
• More efficient apps.

• Allows privacy, as there is no need to send data over the network.. Cons: Expensive development.

• A different executable for each OS and hardware platform.

• Usually a different app for each OS.
• Need to be uploading new versions to the app store.

Recommended usage#

Native apps are suitable for:

• Apps that need to interact with the device’s hardware, memory or OS.
• Apps running locally without network access.
• Apps that need privacy.

Some native apps examples: camera, file manager, gallery, calculator, blog of notes, etc.

Web apps#

Web apps run on a server, providing service throught a browser.

Pros and cons#

Pros: Simple development.

• Only one app needs to be developed.
• Maintainability. Updated directly on the server, not for each mobile.

Cons: Low efficiency.

• Unable to make proper use of the device’s hardware and software.
• Is highly dependent on network technology.
• Usually slower responses.

Recommended usage#

Web apps are suitable for:

• Apps with a small budget.
• Service based Apps (no need of device access).
• Apps with centralised database access requirements.
• Apps whose content is constantly updated.

Some web apps examples: Streaming (as YouTube), news (as NBC News), repositories (as GitHub), online services (as ILovePDF), etc.

Hybrid apps#

Many apps require some features from native apps and some from web apps. So why not make a hybrid app?

Hybrid apps seek to benefit from the best features of both paradigms. So they develop part of the app in a native way and another part in a web way, integrating both parts in a single app.

Recommended usage#

whenever native and web features are necessary.

Some hybrid examples:

• Social network / chat / mail / cloud storage apps: Usually needs access to DB (web feature) but also access to hardware and memory—i.e. camera, gallery or file manager—(native feature). As Twitter, Whatsapp, Gmail or Drive, respectively.
• Localization / Maps apps: Usually needs acces to the map (web feature), but also so the GPS location (native feature). As Google Maps or Uber.

Message-based apps#

The not-so-well-known message-based apps, become important in regions with little network technology.

The message-based apps are supported by messaging APIs like SMS, USSD or STK. See glossary.

Mobile OS#

Nowadays the main two OS are Android (open-source) an iOS, but it has not always been like this.

There have been many other OS for mobiles throughout history:

• Windows Phone (Microsoft)
• Blackberry 10 (Blackberry)
• AliOS (Alibaba)
• Symbian (Nokia)
• Bada (Samsung)
• Firefox OS (Mozilla)
• Mer (Sailfish)
• Ubuntu Touch (Ubuntu)
• Tizen (Samsung)

All of them have passed into history except for Tizen (used for werables).

Topics about mobile development#

• Architecture and OS of mobiles.
• Software and technologies for mobile apps development.
• Mobile apps development for Android.