Mobile Application Development in Trenton
Smartphones and tablets have become part of everyone’s lives these days. If you are seeking a way to set your Trenton business apart from the competition, to attract new customers, or to provide your sales team with tools that will make them more productive and efficient, consider mobile application development by LaunchDM.
LaunchDM has been delivering elegant solutions for the Web for over 17 years. We can help you capitalize on today’s growing trends in interactivity, rich media, mobile and more. We have a well-established reputation of providing the creative front-end design and technical back-end programming necessary to develop innovative apps that will engage your audience.
We have developed beautiful apps for a wide variety of clients, including mobile sales aids for clients such as C.H. Briggs, one of the largest specialty building materials distributors on the East Coast, and Molson Coors Brewing Company for use in the field.
But do you need a native app or a web app? It all depends on how you plan to use it. And user experience, whether the audience is your customers or your employees, should trump everything else when it comes to mobile apps.
Native Apps
The apps you download from the App Store or Google Play are native apps. They’re built for a specific type of mobile device (iOS or Android) and installed directly on it.
Because native apps tie into the device’s hardware (camera, GPS, etc) and software, they tend to perform faster and are easier to use. When the app needs an update, it tells you so. They are also capable of functioning offline and can run asynchronously, which means that dynamic information can be stored locally on the device and synced with the central web-based server later.
Many native apps have a very specific, narrow purpose. You could download an app that helps you find the best pizza in any city. Or one that lets you take care of your banking transactions and even deposit checks while on the go. Or one that lets you check in for your flight. They also make ideal enterprise mobile sales aids.
Native apps often provide the best user experience; an important factor if your app will be customer-focused. The biggest drawback is that an app for each individual mobile platform has to be built separately with different code (which can add to the expense). However, native apps are easier to promote via marketplaces like the App Store and can be a great way to gain new users.
Web Apps
These are HTML5 apps that use standard web technologies –typically HTML5, JavaScript and CSS – and are designed to work on any platform, including future devices that haven’t been invented yet. The user interface, buttons, controls, layout, etc. have all been optimized for use on a small screen, but web apps do not have access to the device’s hardware features. If your app needs access to the GPS, camera, etc., you may have no alternative but to go with a native app.
Web apps are not downloaded, but accessed via the mobile device’s Web browser, so you have the ability to reach a wider audience faster. Any changes you make can be pushed to the web app immediately without requiring users to download anything.
However, the performance of web apps can be somewhat slower than a native app, and they typically do not function in offline or low-bandwidth mode. They can’t be distributed via the popular app marketplaces, and they don’t allow deep level user engagement, like location-based push notifications.
The Bottom Line
The question is not which approach is better, but how to adopt the best solution to meet your business goals. Many successful businesses – large and small – maintain a native app and a mobile responsive website, proving that a combination of solutions can often be the best plan of attack.
If you’re thinking about what a mobile strategy could do for your Trenton business, call LaunchDM’s mobile application development team today at (610) 898-1330 to discuss your ideas!