Apps

Design and development for desktop, mobile and tablet

Overview

We produce apps for many of our clients, providing solutions to short, medium and long-term business challenges, distributed via enterprise or consumer app stores. Features and functionality are only limited by the imagination.

Application architecture is tailored toward our client's requirements, taking into consideration performance, security, budget and cross-platform capabilities. 

Solutions can range from complete custom builds to apps which utilise API's to connect to 3rd party services such as Salesforce for CRM or Mandrill for mail notification services.

This allows for integration into existing corporate tech infrastructures with minimal disruption whilst leveraging existing technologies without incurring development costs.

Hybrid apps

A hybrid app is created for use on multiple platforms (e.g., Android, iPhone, and Windows smartphones). They are web applications (or web pages) in the native browser, because the same web pages (e.g., HTML, CSS, JavaScript) used in web apps are used in hybrid apps as well. Examples are UIWebView in iOS and WebView in Android (not Safari or Google Chrome).

Hybrid apps are developed using HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript, and then embedded in a native application using platforms like Cordova. 

Native apps

Native apps are designed for use with one particular platform or device, like iOS or Android. Native apps are encoded in a specific programming language, such as Objective-C/Swift for iOS or Java for Android operating systems.

Native mobile apps perform faster and more efficiently than hybrid apps. They also have full access to mobile device features, like camera, address book, GPS, accelerometer and compass.

Native apps can be expensive to build because they are generally designed to run on a particular operating system or specific device.

Most video games for mobile devices are native mobile apps. The majority of the well-known apps out there like Facebook, Twitter, and Waze are also native.

Native vs hybrid 

Native

Benefits:

  • Optimum performance for device

  • Comprehensive access to hardware features

Drawbacks:

  • Development cost (each platform needs development in its own native language)

Languages:

  • Objective-C / Swift

  • Java

  • C# / .NET

Hybrid

Benefits:

  • Faster and simpler development

  • Supports multiple operating systems

  • Cost effective

  • More flexible to maintain

Drawbacks:

  • Performance

  • Hardware integration

Languages:

  • HTML5

  • CSS

  • Javascript