In this era of technology, there are five and a half million apps available on Google Play Store and App Store combined. On top of that, approximately five thousand apps are added to these platforms daily. Almost every business is in a hurry to develop and launch their mobile app as soon as possible. However, the important question they couldn’t answer before developing the app is whether to build a native app or opt for cross-platform app development. Well, in this article we will try to find the answer to this question. Let’s get started!
What is native application development?
Native app development is the process of developing a software program that runs on only certain devices and a single platform. The term native refers to a program that runs on a computer platform such as a Mac or Windows. When it comes to mobile apps, however, native apps refer to any application designed specifically to work on a certain mobile platform.
As you may know, Android and iOS are the two most popular mobile platforms. They both use their own operating systems. They both require different programming codes in order to run an application. Android uses Java and Kotlin, while iOS uses Objective-C and Swift. Since native apps are developed specifically for a single platform, they deliver an excellent user experience. It is important to consider many factors before choosing a native mobile app consulting services . Let’s discuss all these factors with the pros and cons of developing native apps to make things clearer.
Pros and Cons of native app development:
There are a lot of pros and cons to a native app. Let’s talk about the pros first.
Pros of native app development:
Better Performance:
The performance of native apps is one of the most significant advantages over their cross-platform counterparts. It is because the code is executed directly on top of the OS. The execution of the program is not slowed down by an intermediary software layer. In other words, the native app directly accesses the hardware of the device and this enhances the user experience drastically.
Speed:
Several elements in the native app are preloaded and instead of loading user data from the entire application, it fetches data from the web making the application load faster. Having native mobile apps access the OS directly and load user data from the web increases their speed and enhances performance.
Offline Availability:
One of the biggest disadvantages of cross-platform apps is that they always require the user to have an active internet connection to access the app. While native mobile apps do not require an active internet connection, they work perfectly without it.
Image Quality:
The progressive resolution and orientation of native apps provide better image quality. The aspect ratio is used to determine this. Aspect Ratio can be defined as the ratio between the width and the height of a screen. With native apps, aspect ratio and DPI (dots per inch) are maintained for every screen, which helps in maintaining visual quality.
Cons of native app development:
Just like the pros, there are some cons to native app development as well. Let’s talk about them one by one.
Cost:
Cost is one of the most critical factors in the development and maintenance of any mobile application. The bad news is that the development and maintenance cost of a native app is higher than a hybrid or cross-platform app. The reason is simply that you have to build a separate app for each platform and also maintain them separately. This increases the cost of a native mobile application.
Time Consuming:
Because a native app is developed for each platform separately, it takes more time to develop the apps. The development of a native application requires almost twice as much time as the development of a cross-platform application.
Bug Fixing:
It is common for developers to release updates for mobile applications, often in the form of bugs and glitches being fixed. The developers of a native application have to fix all of the native applications rather than making a single fix to a cross-platform app.
Downloading Process:
To use a native application, it is necessary for users to download it from either of the platforms. In order to download a native application, they have to follow several steps. Users have to find the app, read the terms and conditions, and then follow the download instructions. Some users may find the download process to be slow and impatient at times.
Is react native good for mobile app development?
React Native is one of the most popular community-driven platforms available for developing apps for both iOS and Android. It saves you time and money by reducing the codebase by about 95%. Combined with agile development, it offers more efficient app development. The React Native framework also comes with an array of open-source libraries that give you access to prebuilt components, which further accelerates development.
The React Native framework allows you to develop applications extremely fast. Native code can be used in your app with the framework. With this, some portions of your application will be written in native code while the remainder will be written in React Native code.
Conclusion:
In this article, we talked about the native app development process. We discussed its pros and cons in detail and in the end, we discussed if react native is suitable for developing mobile apps. The answer to this question is always yes. React Native is an excellent platform to develop a mobile app.
