This is the final part in a series of articles looking at the alternatives to native app development for smartphones and shines the spotlight on HTML 5. This article will ask the question, if HTML 5 is so good, why bother with native development?
Why go native?
There are still a number of compelling reasons why you may want to build a native app. Here are just some of them which vary by platform: -
- providing the richest possible user experience including slick animation and graphics
- push notification (where email or text message is the only alternative on mobile apps)
- charging for apps and in-app purchase
- for Apple devices, showing iAds or integrating with Game Centre.
- integrating closely with the device such as calendar, address book, alerts, accelerometer, background processing when not active (multitasking), bluetooth for peer-to-peer connectivity, third party accessories, etc.
- complex/CPU intensive operations such as image processing, augmented reality, 3D games, etc
- accessing the camera on a device
In forthcoming articles, we'll take a closer look at technologies which support web app development such as Sencha, jQTouch and jQuery mobile.
References and further reading
- Mobile HTML 5.0 - Michael Galpin discusses developing mobile web applications. Slides from his presentation are also available.
- CanIUse - browser version compatability site.
- Chitika Research - mobile penetration statistics.
- Android platform statistics - based on traffic to Android Market
- HTML 5 the end of apps? - article discussing HTML 5 v Native apps.
This is the final article in this series: -
- Part 1 : Tech Spotlight: Native v HTML 5 apps
- Part 2 : Tech Spotlight: HTML 5 technologies
- Part 3 : Tech Spotlight: Why go native?
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