Whenever you ask developers this question, the next question they ask you is why do you want to be a mobile developer?
Here is the answer, people are very close to their smartphones because they can achieve a lot within a short time like checking emails, social networking, preparing a document, playing a game, listening to music, watching movies, learning etc…
The world has rapidly moved to the use of smartphones than laptop use. A 70-year old woman uses a smartphone instead of laptop this day. So you really need to consider a career in mobile application development.
The next question is what are the tools you need to know/use as a new mobile developer. Well, I will tell you about hybrid and native development.
Hybrid Development is what I call easy-life-method because is quite easy to understand, simple to use and more rapid. Hybrid development requires you to understand HTML5, JavaScript and CSS very well. For web developers, this is superb. Hybrid applications give a short cut to deploy web application as a native application by wrapping the web app code using a native framework such as PhoneGap. If you want to do hybrid application; I will recommend “IONIC framework”.
IONIC framework is quite easy to use and it has a various component that will support your features. To use ionic, you should have good knowledge about AngularJS because ionic relies on AngularJS shoulder for controls and models. Ionic have short commands that work like magic (Watch Out for Reasons to fall in love with ionic).
Hybrid apps have large plugins that can be used to achieve your application features. Hybrid apps rely on native for compilation.
Merits of Hybrid Development
- You need to know just HTML5, JS and CSS to develop
- Same code for multiple platforms (Android, IOS, BB, Windows)
- Reduces development cost and time
- Lot of frameworks and components for development
Demerits
- Application is ‘sometimes’ slower
- Doesn’t have complete latency expectation
- Not sophisticated enough
- Database security leverages on another web platform e.g. Firebase, ParseCloud etc
Aww… I have no name for Native Application Development. When I started native development the first thing I realised was the strength of its user experience. iLove it!
Your application will be development with a specific mobile platform; JAVA for Android and Objective C for IOS. That is; you have to learn either of the languages very well. Also, XML if you want to build an application for android.
I really don’t like the fact that it is so expensive. For instance; if you want to be an ios application developer, you must get a Mac. You can write your code anywhere but mac is needed to build the code into an application.
Native apps have a distinct merit of leveraging the inbuilt features of the native platform such as camera etc. It has superior performance – speed and size wise.
Merits of Native Application Development
- It is faster in performance
- It can work offline mode
- It has some other sophisticated functionalities and features that will make your project possible
Demerits
- It is based on just one platform 😦
- It is expensive
- You need different knowledge for different platform
Above all, nowadays mobile browsers are built with HTML5 which is always pretty and fast to navigate. Hybrid apps developers are increasing every day. Hybrid application testing can be easily done on different mobile phones just with a command while Native app testing is quite annoying with an emulator.
I love the joy of testing native app (android on android studio), you see error before you finish compiling the application, unlike hybrid where you finish compiling, sending to your phone before you see your error.
Native (android) have a cool way of reporting bugs with which error occurs.
usmanolaoluwa.wordpress.com 
Leave a comment