Types of Mobile Applications and Application for your purpose

The modern era is dedicated to the cosmos of mobile applications. With over 6.3 billion smartphone users(as of 2022) across the world, it’s no surprise that the mobile app industry is thriving. Wherever you go you must have one shopping app, one food delivery app, one taxi booking app and the list goes on. Research shows that there are 80+ apps installed on the average smartphone.

Apps have helped businesses build brands, retain customers and scale thereby multiplying their revenue. Customers are more likely to repeatedly interact with businesses that are at their fingertips, so apps are a great customer loyalty tool.

Different types of Mobile Applications are

1. Native Apps-a software program that is developed for use on a particular platform or device. Eg-whatsapp, spotify etc. Technologies used : Java, Kotlin, Python, Swift, Objective-C, C++, and React.
2. Non-Native Apps or Web Apps-are responsive versions of websites that can work on any mobile device or OS because they’re delivered using a mobile browser. Eg- Google Docs, Microsoft office, Netflix, etc. Technologies used HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, Ruby, and similar programming languages used for web work.
3. Hybrid Apps-are combinations of both native and web apps, but wrapped within a native app, giving it the ability to have its own icon or be downloaded from an app store. Eg-Twitter, Gmail, Uber, etc. Technology Used: Hybrid apps use a mixture of web technologies and native APIs. They’re developed using: Ionic, Objective C, Swift, HTML5, and others.

In order to choose best app for your business or upcoming project you need to understand pros, cons, efforts and performance of each.

So now you can figure out as per the requirements/resources of your upcoming project/ business which type of application will provide the best solution.

But what if you are a user and you want to know the app you are using is native or non-native.

Some of the methods which I tried :-

1. Open the developer option in your mobile and turn on show layout bounds. Then next open the app installed on your smartphone. In case of native app, it will show rectangles in each activity that you open. In case of non-native apps, it will show cross ; however this is not true for all the apps. For some of the hybrid apps it shows rectangles .
2. Copy, paste- Go to any label on your installed app and keep it clicked for sometime. If you get a popup to copy, paste then the activity is made of webview . Otherwise, that activity and the whole app is built as native mobile app.

If the above methods works for you, do not forget to clap 👏 and post your findings in your blog (leave your blog link in the comment 😉)