The 21st century is all about technology and digitalization. Millions of mobile applications are available on Google Play Store and App Store. Research suggests that nearly 5,000 new applications are added daily to these stores! The reason? Almost every business today wants to have a mobile application.
But they face a dilemma. Should they build a native application or a cross-platform application? This article helps you answer that question. We will explain the pros and cons of mobile app development so that you can make an informed decision.
What is Native App Development?
Native app development refers to the process of building applications that function on one platform and specific devices. The word native means that the program runs on a platform like Windows or Mac. However, native apps refer to those kinds of applications that have been designed to run on a particular system, like iOS or Android.
Since both iOS and Android are different platforms using their own operating systems, they require different programming codes for running applications. Whereas Android uses Kotlin and Java, iOS employs Swift and Objective-C. Native apps are created to run on a single platform. Therefore, they offer an excellent user experience (UX).
You need to take into account many essential aspects before choosing to build a native mobile application. Let’s delve into these aspects by highlighting the pros and cons of native app development.
Pros
1. High-Quality Performance
Native applications are high-performance apps. This is the most significant advantage these apps have over cross-platform apps. Native app development achieves better performance because its code is implemented directly on top of an operating system (OS). Therefore, you can execute a program without worrying that it will slow down due to an intermediary software layer. To put it differently, a native app has direct access to a device’s hardware, which enables it to give an enhanced user experience (UX).
2. High Speed
Native apps offer another critical advantage over cross-platform app frameworks: they are high-speed. They pull data directly from the web instead of the application loading the user data. Thus, these apps come with many preloaded elements. Moreover, native apps are also faster than cross-platform apps because they have direct access to the device’s operating system.
3. Offline Availability
Native apps are designed to run offline, while cross-platform apps require the user to have an active internet connection. This is a significant benefit, given that many users may want to use their mobile app offline due to the unavailability of a stable internet connection.
4. High-Quality Images
Native apps have progressive orientation and resolution, which enables them to provide better-quality images. These apps maintain the DPI (dots per inch) and aspect ratio for all screens, thus providing high visual quality. Aspect ratio refers to the ratio between a screen’s height and width.
Cons
1. High Cost
The most significant disadvantage of native app development is its high cost. It is evident that the cost of a mobile app is one of the major concerns of any business. Native apps are costlier to develop and maintain as compared to cross-platform or hybrid apps. This is because you have to build a separate app for each platform and maintain it separately as well. All this boils down to a higher cost.
2. Time-Consuming
It takes more time to build a native app since you have to develop it for each platform separately. On average, it takes twice as long to develop a native app compared to a cross-platform app.
3. Fixing Bugs
With native apps, fixing bugs and glitches is a tedious task. You have to fix the glitches and bugs in all native apps and then release the updated versions. However, you just have to fix the bug or glitch only once for a cross-platform app.
4. Downloading
You have to download a native app using one of the platforms. For this, a user has to follow a few steps which may seem unnecessary, like reading the terms and conditions, etc.
Conclusion
This article briefly discusses the advantages and disadvantages of native app development. Which type of app suits your business depends entirely on your business requirements. It could be native, hybrid, or cross-platform. The decision is yours!