Thursday, March 28, 2024

Not Native, Not Pure HTMl5, Hybrid Is a Developer’s Compromise

Developers usually have a preference when it comes to HTML over native mobile apps, and may even be outspoken as to their preference. As the debate rolls on, many companies have come to a developer compromise–hybrid apps that use both technologies.

Hybrid apps are actually downloadable native apps that run in an embedded browser environment. As far as an end user is concerned, hybrid apps are native apps, but if you were to check out the app’s source code, you would see that part of it was written using HTML, CSS and JavaScript. That’s the part that can be reused across multiple devices.  
 
If you use the iPhone Facebook app, you are already using a hybrid app. The Facebook app loads some pages from their website, as does the Bank of America iPhone app. Other hybrid apps, such as the Harmonius app, use HTML5 for its entire user interface.

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