Hybrid App for cross-platform WebApp development technology

There are three types of APP development patterns known to you:

1. Operating system-based app-Native app, focused on native development, user experience, need to install to upgrade
2. Web App, browser-based app, focus on web technology implementation, cross-platform compatibility, as long as developers update code, no need to install upgrade
3. The Hybrid app, based on the mobile app Engine, uses H5 and JS development. This is the quickest and most cost-saving method if you do not pursue a medical checkup.

The following figure is from a simple book, a comparison of three different forms of apps:

Hybrid app is a widely popular application development model, Android, IOS, JS three-terminal content has been completed, has a sound design ideas, tutorials and API documentation.

hybrid App, which has both short cross-platform development cycle , low cost of the gene , and to play native app experience and performance advantage, hybridapp hybrid mobile application development is becoming the first choice for enterprise mobile development.
hybrid app is usually development based on a third-party cross-platform mobile application Engine Framework :

Among the domestic developers the more well-known have the PhoneGap、Titanium和AppCan这些引擎框架 general use HTML5和Javascript as programming language , call 引擎封装的底层功能如照相机、传感器、通讯录、二维码 and so on. HTML5和Javascript只是作为一种解析语言，真正调用的都是NativeApp一样封装的底层功能，这是和Web App的最大区别和不同. 浏览器技术 hybrid apps usually have 跨平台的特性 , and 开发成本和WebApp接近 , develop 效率也远高于Native App , because they are used.

To be honest, it's hard to tell, on the surface, whether an app is a native app or a hybrid app, but in fact we're more of a Hybrid App当做是Webapp的一部分 native, because he's a part of it. Most of the Web pages (HTML5 pages).

The Hybrid app, like the native app, requires users to distribute channels 下载并安装到手机上才能用的 across a variety of apps . The experience of Hybrid app is of course nothing to say, compared to the great, there are all the advantages of this native app. HTML5 is a good solution to cross-platform problems, but also solves the problem of high development costs.

At home and abroad hybrid app development platform is numerous, currently has three kinds of development mode:

1. Using PhoneGap, Appcan and other middleware, WebView as the user interface layer, JavaScript as the basic logic , as well as communication with the middleware, and then by the middleware access to the underlying API, the way the application development. This architecture is generally very dependent on the performance of the WebView layer.
2. Use Adobe Air, rubymotion, Appcelerator, or a non-official language tool like Xamarin, packaged as a native app. Why do I define them as hybrid apps, mainly because they are not very simple to use the native language to develop, but by providing developers with friendly development tools, and compromise the development of this language into native language, eventually packaged the entire application, so also belong to the hybrid application category.
3. Based on the development of native applications, embedded WebView But the overall architecture is provided using native applications, typically such development is made up of native developers and web front-end developers. Native developers will write a basic architecture and API for Web developers to develop interfaces and most of the rendering. To ensure that the interaction design, as well as the development of a more eclectic effect, good optimization will also have a great effect.

Domestic Hybrid App Framework, more:Dcloud

Date of establishment: 2014

Financing situation: 12 million RMB

Products: Hbuilder, 5+runtime, MUI (free)

Integrated Native SDK: self-integration via 5+SDK

PhoneGap (Cordova)

Date of establishment: August 2008

Financing situation: acquired by Adobe

Product: PhoneGap (Cordova)

Integrated Native SDK: self-integration

Product Features:

PhoneGap is a foreign open-source mobile development platform. The core code has now been contributed to Apache Cordova, the latest version is 2.6.0, which is based on html,css and JavaScript and can be used in some open-source frameworks such as jquery Mobile,dojo Mobile,sencha Touch and so on to improve the user experience, but also provides a richer native plug-in call.

Disadvantages:

1. Need to be configured for the appropriate platform environment, compile, package test, publish, etc. Due to the use of hybrid development of the user base, most of the Web developers, the primary development of the basic understanding, which undoubtedly adds a heavy burden to each developer, need to understand the development of each platform needs to know, hardware and so on to configure, increase development costs.

2. Slow to use effects, slow page transitions, slow data requests. Difficult to debug, high memory consumption. Can not be completely cross-platform, different platform code needs fine tuning.

3. Although the document is more detailed but the basic is English, for the majority of domestic users of the poor English level is a relatively large challenge.

4. Because it is a foreign framework, technical support is not in place, there are problems, can not be resolved, become the difficult point of technical research.

Focus: Focus on hardware access control

Appcan

Date of establishment: early 2010

Financing situation: 100 million RMB

Products: Public edition (free) and Enterprise Edition (charge)

Disadvantages:

1. Although there are Chinese development documents, the description is relatively simple and hopefully they will enrich their API documentation.

2. The free version does not support custom plugins (it is said that the Enterprise Edition can customize the plugin).

3. Temporarily only supports ios,android two big platforms, do not know when launches Windows Phone 8?

4. Many features require an Enterprise Edition to be implemented, but only for a fee.

5. Appcan free version due to the need to upload the source code to the vendor's server packaging, for enterprise development, the source code leakage security has a certain risk. Although the Enterprise Edition can be resolved, Enterprise Edition stability remains to be seen.

6. The Appcan uses encapsulated components, which are highly dependent. Not open source code.

7. Appcan is not a good solution to native code functionality.

What's the difference between PhoneGap and Appcan?

Probably browsed the Appcan document, API design can only use inexplicable to describe, all kinds of abbreviations, all kinds of can not understand.

Compare Tables	Phonegap	Appcan
Frame function	Simple	Rich
Support Platform	Most platforms	4 + platforms only
Development environment	Different platforms require different development environments	Just one IDE package
Debugging	can be debugged directly	A locally released iOS package that must be deployed on a jailbroken machine
Release	Can be directly published locally	The code must be uploaded to the server before it can be published
IOS Signature Management	Local administration	Need to upload to server
Code Leakage Risk	Low: Save code only on-premises, SVN	High: The code needs to be uploaded to the Appcan server

the challenges facing hybrid

Facebook launched the React Native program, which is Facebook in the abandonment of H5 after the launch of a ' anti-H5 solution ', a sentence summary is: Inside can use JS to write a full native application .

The launch of the Small program , which is also a leading ' anti-H5 scheme ', a summary is: Inside can be with js+ homemade UI scheme to write a similar to the native application , but this app is not published in the App Store, but published to the.

Hybrid App for cross-platform WebApp development technology