iOS Hybrid Development

If you have any experience in mobile app development, whether android or iOS, you know the amount of time it can take to create apps.  Some companies invest dozens of salaries annually building their iOS or Android apps. Others may only have one or two staff members that work on their development team full-time.  Either way, I have yet to see a mobile development shop churn out an iOS or Android app quickly.

MobileDev + Test 2015

In April 2015, I attended the MobileDev + Test Conference in San Diego, California.  It was at this conference where I was introduced to a very specific hybrid solution called Ionic.  I had heard of hybrid development 5 years earlier but at the time the technology was new and had very limited features and access to the core functionality and hardware.  However, that was 5 years ago.  In the past 2 years hybrid mobile development has made leaps and bounds.

Free and Open Source

Ionic is free and open source, and utilizes Angular in order to create a powerful SDK most suited to develop rich and robust applications.  Ionic not only looks nice, but its core architecture is built for serious app development.  It is also modeled on popular native mobile development SDK's.  This makes it easy to understand for anyone who has already built native apps for iOS or Android.

Ionic Tools

One of the best features that comes with Ionic is a powerful CLI (Command Line Interface).  With the integrated CLI you can use a singular command to create, build, test and deploy your Ionic app onto any platform.  One very handy feature is Ionic's live reload and integrated logging which allow for rapid development.  With those two tools alone, you will be miles ahead of any native developer.

Build Once, Deploy Everywhere

Even with the most skilled native developer, you will still need to re-develop your app for Android, then Windows, and by the time you are done with Windows, you will already be back to upgrading your iOS app.  The cycle never ends.  With Ionic, you build your iOS app a single time and then deploy it to all other platforms.

"Is Hybrid Right for Me?"

Most developers and managers think to themselves, "We are a serious shop, we don't need to be developing HYBRID apps."  An independent study showed that when the average user is presented with two apps, one built natively and one built using Ionic, and told to select the app they believe was built using native technology, the users always select the Ionic app as the one that looks, acts and feels like an iPhone or iPad app.

Ionic Apps in the App Store

Some say there aren't that many hybrid apps out there and the ones that are aren't popular.  Enter Untappd - Discover Beer.  At the MobileDev + Test Conference, I was fortunate enough to meet and talk with the owner and developer of Untappd.  Untappd is a beer app and has millions of users.  One of my own latest apps, released in January 2016, is Bread Crumbs Trails.  Bread Crumbs Trails currently has several hundred users a day.  And as a last example, have you ever heard of Evernote?  So much for the popularity critic.  At last count, there are 1.5 million iOS apps in the iTunes app store, and hybrid apps are estimated to make up several hundred thousand of those. 

Speed

Last but not least, the speed of Ionic development is unmatched.  How quick can you build a hybrid mobile app?  Well, it depends on the skill and talent of the developer, and it also depends on the quality of the app you are trying to make.  But for my test case, I developed a simple game called ColorTouches.  ColorTouches was created for fun and is a simple game where you touch the shown color for points.  It tracks how many taps you get right and how many you get wrong and has a 30 second countdown timer.  For that basic functionality, including the graphics, it took me less than 24 hours to develop the app.  More features will be added in the future, but for now, a fully functional app for iPhone and iPads is in the iTunes store and all built in three days.