(The designers have correctly assumed that on the web people need the logo to orient themselves, since they are likely to land on a deep page without navigating through the homepage. The Back button on iOS is translated into a caret on Android the logo is present on the web page, but not in the app. Here are three pages displaying the same content in the Android app, iPhone app, and mobile website: Walgreens app for Android Walgreens app for iPhone Walgreens mobile website (m.)Īs you can see, all these pages are the same, except for the top header, which is platform specific. However, the Shop section in both the Android and iPhone apps uses a browser view that renders the corresponding page of the Walgreens mobile website. Both apps have multiple sections and many native features such as access to notifications and a Refill by scan feature that uses the phone camera to refill prescriptions: Walgreens app for Android Walgreens provides two very similar hybrid apps- one for Android and the other for iPhone. Tools such as PhoneGap and Sencha Touch allow people to design and code across platforms, using the power of HTML. Hybrid apps are also popular because they allow crossplatform development and thus significantly reduce development costs: that is, the same HTML code components can be reused on different mobile operating systems. Often, companies build hybrid apps as wrappers for an existing web page in that way, they hope to get a presence in the app store, without spending significant effort for developing a different app. Like web apps, they rely on HTML being rendered in a browser, with the caveat that the browser is embedded within the app. Like native apps, they live in an app store and can take advantage of the many device features available. (Because of that, many people incorrectly call them “web apps”). Hybrid apps are part native apps, part web apps. But if you really need those native features, you’ll have to create a native app or, at least, a hybrid app. Of course, one can argue that many apps (native or otherwise) do not take advantage of those extra features anyhow. There are, however, native features that remain inaccessible (at least from now) in the browser: the notifications, running in the background, accelerometer information (other than detecting landscape or portrait orientations), complex gestures. Also available are the GPS, the tap-to-call feature, and, there is talk about a camera API, although I haven’t seen any web app (or web page) that takes advantage of it so far. These are all features that are available in HTML5. And, due to browser caching, it’s even possible to read the newspaper offline. Users can swipe horizontally to move on to new sections of the app. For instance, there are no visible browser buttons or bars, although it runs in Safari (when accessed from an iPhone). Its web app is, in many ways, hard to distinguish from a native app. Instead, it came out with an iPhone web app (app.ft.com):įinancial Times web app for iPhone Horizontal swiping on Financial Times' web app In 2011 Financial Times withdrew its native app from Apple’s App Store to circumvent subscription fees and maintain closer connection with their subscribers. Today, as more and more sites use HTML5, the distinction between web apps and regular web pages has become blurry. Web apps became really popular when HTML5 came around and people realized that they can obtain native-like functionality in the browser. Users first access them as they would access any web page: they navigate to a special URL and then have the option of “installing” them on their home screen by creating a bookmark to that page. They are run by a browser and typically written in HTML5. Web apps are not real applications they are really websites that, in many ways, look and feel like native applications, but are not implemented as such. And native apps can use the device’s notification system and can work offline. They can also incorporate gestures (either standard operating-system gestures or new, app-defined gestures). They are developed specifically for one platform, and can take full advantage of all the device features - they can use the camera, the GPS, the accelerometer, the compass, the list of contacts, and so on. Native apps are installed through an application store (such as Google Play or Apple’s App Store). Native apps live on the device and are accessed through icons on the device home screen. In the mobile realm, you’ll hear often terms like native app or web app, or even hybrid app.
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