Pros and Cons of Mobile App Development

Mobile app development is the most sought-after feature of every start-up service and hot new product today. The reasons that mobile apps are so highly prized amongst firms are pretty compelling. The first question people ask when discovering something new: does it have an app?

A dedicated mobile application shows intent and investment in providing to users. A mobile app can show off your branding, promote your favoured services and bring users into the fold as easily as a tap and a swipe. It’s rapidly become the first-choice mode of user interaction.

With more than 7 billion devices out in the world now, the mobile marketplace offers up a vast opportunity to find a sizeable user base. There is, however, more than one way to reach that audience.

The investment required to produce a dedicated native mobile application is a large one with major consequences. Deciding whether to pursue a mobile application or an alternate source of revenue is a difficult one to make. The resource could instead be diverted into developing existing services further, or invested in alternate app development approaches to achieve many of the same goals and results.

In developing an accessible app, there are multiple approaches available to reach your desired goal. Native mobile, web app, and hybrid approaches can be taken to design and produce a mobile application to suit your technical, engineering, and financial requirements.

Each of these options has its own benefits and drawbacks. What suits one business or project won’t necessarily suit another. Here we’ll dive deeper into the pros and cons of each and what these mean for your application.

What Exactly is a Mobile App?

Commonly seen as the 'gold standard' in a mobile presence, native mobile apps offer a lot for businesses looking to expand their reach and enhance existing services.

For several years in succession, mobile apps have attracted more users than desktop computing. App use is now dominating the online experience, with many web services being forgotten about altogether.

Even traditional hold-outs, the industries which stayed a web-first service longer than most, are now focusing on an app-based approach. Mobile banking, financial services, utilities, and online shopping are now leading with their mobile apps to satisfy user demand.

Investing in a bespoke mobile application for one or two platforms does have benefits and drawbacks. While meeting customer expectations with an attractive user experience, it’s also a significant investment in resources and added time-to-market.

Weighing up these benefits and drawbacks is critical to making the right competitive decision for your service going forward. You will also want to make sure you stay up to date with the latest in mobile app engineering. We are here for when you need to find the right team to develop your new app, just tell us what you need. We can do the work for you and connect you with up to 5 companies within 72h that match your need- all for free.

Advantages of Mobile App Development

• Improved user experience: Apps tailored to the system they run on will invariably outperform experiences that are developed to run across multiple platforms.
• Broader market coverage: A significant percentage of the market now prefers conducting business through an app. This is particularly true of younger demographics and represents a consistently growing target audience.
• Direct access: An app offers an opportunity to connect with your users without going through a third party or being subject to filters. Even social media platforms or e-mail marketing can’t offer the same.
• The mobile platform features: Device features such as the camera, sensors, and payment methods are most easily accessed by native mobile applications.
• The operating system features: Full access to OS features such as push notifications means a large number of options are open for promoting services and events.
• Offline access: The ability to access various areas of functionality without access to the web makes the experience feel more consistent and reliable.
• Create stickiness: Embedding your branding and services in the user’s pocket is a great way to stay connected and forge a more lasting relationship. Having your brand on the device improves visibility, particularly in comparison to the web experience.

Disadvantages of Mobile App Development

• Initial cost of development: Particularly true when targeting more than one native application. Building native mobile applications is a significant investment in money and engineering resources.
• Ongoing maintenance: Adding features, bug fixes, and security updates is an ongoing recurring cost for the practical working life of your application.
• Approval required: Before you can get your service to users, you have to go through one or both app stores first. This approval can take time, particularly in iOS apps. Services operating in restricted markets (gambling, for example) can mean undertaking even more rigorous processes.
• User buy-in required: Conventional apps need the user to download and install them on their device, but some users may be hesitant to do so. Promotions and marketing are often required to encourage wide-scale early adoption.

Web App

Perhaps better known as not having an app at all, optimising the web experience to run well on mobile devices is a great way to reach users without the investment and time needed to produce a mobile application. Once accessed for the first time, users can even save a link to the page on the home screen and access the page again as if it were a fully installed app.

For users, it means that they don’t have to invest in the space and resources required to install yet another mobile app. There’s no ‘buy-in’ required ahead of time and many of the features and functions look similar to that of a conventional app.

The advantages to the business are abundantly clear too. The resource spared on mobile app development can go a long way to improving services and features in other areas. Simply updating the website to upgrade the mobile experience will come at a fraction of the cost of a newly-built native application.

Well-implemented web technologies tailor the user experience to the device, platform, and screen size of the page. Desktop users will see a conventional-looking web page, whereas mobile users will see an experience optimised to meet the device they’re currently using.

The web app, far from being a transitional phase between the browser and app, has advantages and drawbacks of its own that make it worth strong consideration.

Advantages of Web App Deployment

• Ease of access: Web apps can target a vast number of devices and platforms with relative ease. If a device has a browser, then it’s virtually ready-made to access the service.
• Improved discovery: Search engines have full visibility over web apps. This makes it easier to discover new users searching on a topic or subject matter related to the app.
• Cost-effective: Developing web apps is less expensive than mobile apps. The time to market, even starting from scratch, is also much less than a like-for-like mobile application.
• Efficient updating: With a common code base for multiple platforms, it’s easier for developers to make changes once which apply everywhere.

Disadvantages of Web App Deployment

• User experience: When accessing services from a mobile device, users expect the interface and usability consistent with the platform they’re on. It’s very difficult for web apps to come close to that, particularly across multiple platforms.
• Limited feature sets: Access to the underlying device is significantly limited when using web apps. Device native features such as the camera and sensors are often off-limits or heavily restricted.
• Offline access: Web apps are, by design, reliant on an internet connection to load new pages. It’s possible to save pages already accessed for later offline use, reading lengthy articles, for example. The fundamental nature of the web apps, however, requires a moderate to fast internet connection to remain active.
• Stability: Variations, changes, and customisation to web browsers mean small bugs are often introduced. Regular maintenance and periodic updates are often required on web apps as a result.
• No marketplace access: Users won’t be able to discover the service by searching the marketplace for similar apps. This limits access to a vast audience and removes visibility in a place where many may expect to see the service.

Hybrid App

The advantages and drawbacks of web and native apps are prioritised by marketplace availability, access to the underlying device, and low-cost entry to mobile users. A hybrid app is a way to merge the best of both these worlds and enjoy the advantages of each.

Like a native application, users can install a hybrid app from the platform’s marketplace. They offer full access to the iOS or Android App stores. However, they also access the core functionality through a web browser embedded into the installed application.

The result is an installable mobile app requiring only a fraction of the investment and resources of a fully-fledged native application. Hybrid apps have clear and obvious advantages over both native and web apps, but suffer some of the same drawbacks too.

Hybrid apps are a solution to many common problems app developers face using both native and web approaches. Why not checking out our cross-platform Flutter teams to see if they are the right choice? Should you decide to proceed with this type of app and you need help selecting the right company, tell us what you need. We can do the work for you and connect you with up to 5 companies within 72h that match your need- all for free.

Advantages of Hybrid apps

• Low cost compared to native apps: The reduction in costs compared to native application development are clear, particularly when targeting multiple platforms. Only a native container for each platform needs to be built with the content inside shared from the web.
• Advantages of both camps: Hybrid apps are easier to update, can be indexed by search engines and faster to change, much like web apps. They also create the same app store presence and familiarity as conventional mobile applications.
• Cross-platform functionality: Because the core content is shared from the web, it’s relatively easy to incorporate support for multiple platforms.

Disadvantages of Hybrid apps

• User experience lacking: With content loaded from the web, much like a web app, users can be put off by the UI having a different look and feel to the platform they’re using. This can delay and sometimes, in severe cases, prohibit approval in the app store.
• Limited capabilities compared to native: Hybrid apps don’t typically have the same access to device and OS-specific functionality as native apps. Developers can often address limitations with additional plugins and code but at the cost of added complexity and cost.
• Disadvantages of both solutions: Like web apps, hybrid apps require an active connection to access most functionality. Similarly, they require the user to download an app from the store.
• Skills and knowledge needed: For the small details, an experienced engineer with knowledge of native development is often very useful. Some of the skills needed in creating hybrid apps are the same as those for native app development.

Web App, Hybrid, or Native: Which Should You Choose?

In truth, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to mobile application development. Whether you choose a web app, native app, or hybrid solution will depend on your particular project and its requirements.

If slick user experience and complex feature-sets are valued above all else, then a native mobile application is likely the best fit. If rapid time-to-market and reducing costs are mission-critical, then a web app might be ideal. If the truth is somewhere in between and you need the features of both at a minimal cost then a hybrid app could take care of many issues at once.

You will want to make sure you resolve this so you can begin to decide if you should hire a mobile app freelance developer or a remote mobile app development team.

Each solution works to the strengths of different products and services. The best option today may change one, two or five years down the road. Weighing up the pros and cons of each is a complex challenge worthy of expert consideration and a significant investment in thinking time and careful planning.