Hi this is A Minute of Overpass, my name is Eric and I make apps.
Now this week, I want to talk about why you should be considering a hybrid framework when
building your next app.
One of the more contested topics in the app development field is the Hybrid Framework
or PhoneGap, Cordova, Corona SDK (that kind of thing) vs Native debate.
A few years ago, I mean this has been going on for years ever since the PhoneGap came
out and just to give you an idea, just to let you know what a hybrid framework is if
you're unfamiliar with the term, that's something like a, PhoneGap you may have heard of, its
something that sits on top of the operating system.
I mentioned this a few weeks ago, we bring up this graphic again where you have iOS code
or android code and you have to write code either to one of those or two sets of code
basis, however, if you're using a hybrid framework, what you could do is build your code on top
of that code and this framework will translate everything from what you are trying to do
into two different platforms.
Say, iPhone takes a picture in a certain way, and android takes a picture a different way
using two sets of codes, this framework will take that and will give you one common set
of codes.
And this framework could be in many languages, like PhoneGap, as I've mention, or Cordova
(also called) is done in JavaScript in HTML and its very easy to use and its very, very
powerful.
However, we also have things like Xamarin which can be done in C#, you have Corona SDK,
which we use, which could be done in LUA, and there's a lot of them.
These frameworks, they work really well but they're very restrictive, so if you have something
new that comes out in iOS, for example, iOS watch and the android watch, these both have
different APIs and those hybrid frameworks haven't quite caught up with them yet.
And the funny thing about the app market is that when the iPhone comes out with something
to give a competitive edge, then android eventually will copy it and then android will come up
with something that gives them a competitive edge and then eventually iPhone will copy
it.
Which is great, I mean that's the reason we have this exciting market and this keeps us
pushing forward, however, sometimes there's a little bit of lag for these hybrid frameworks
to catch it.
Anyway, a few years ago, the debate was, there some developers who say "Always do native"
because native is much more performing, you get much better performance on native than
you do in PhoneGap or the hybrid frameworks.
However, I think, one of the things that I contend over, specially now here in July 2015,
if you are not using a hybrid framework, more often than not, you are spending more money
than you need to.
Now, if you're doing something that's really low level, say, you're using the watch or
the heart rate monitor or something that's kind a new and you can't do to run these hybrid
frameworks, yeah, by all means, go native but you do have two sets of cost.
You have the android development cost or the iPhone development cost.
Many people would just ignore Android altogether so you have 80% of the market and just go
for iPhone which delivers more money, but my opinion here, again for last few years,
we have seen the hybrid frameworks have been really advancing, not only that, but because
of Moore's Law, we've been saying the processing power of both the iPhone and the Android just
getting more and more powerful each time where these little delays in things that little
bit sluggish before hardly exist at all and you got things like the Crosswalk framework
on Cordova which will take an old Android device which is used in an old Android browser
and put the new Chrome browser into it and it just adds like 10 to 20 MB to the file
but the performance boost is enormous.
So, we're starting to see, like a lot of innovations coming out from the hybrid area.
To the point where, when I tell clients so they call me, what we really wanna do, unless
we can't help it at all, is go with one of the hybrid frameworks.
We wanted to reduce costs as much as we can and have a code base which we could, write
one time with a few tweaks for each platforms for both Android, iPhone and you know, if
you're ambitious then Windows phone as well.
So that's my message now.
Whereas, a few years ago, it did feel a little bit strange saying, "Yeah, maybe we should
go hybrid, you know, we'll test it out, check in terms of speed."
Now, its almost crazy not to consider it as a first option, unless there's absolutely
no way forward.
And, many app developers are probably disagreeing with me of that.
Comment and let me know if you disagree with that because in my opinion, with the ionic
framework, with all the new frameworks that are coming out, you really should be looking
at a hybrid if you can and if there's something you need and you can't find a plugin for it
or build a plugin for it then go through native.
So that's it for this week's Minute of Overpass.
Now if you're watching this on the iTunes Podcast, please leave a review, I love to
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That's it for this week, I'll talk to you next week.
Bye!