A brief overview of Hybrid apps in 2014

hybrid-apps-2014.md

Hybrid apps in 2014

• What is is like to build hybrid apps in 2014?
• How does it differ from mobile development in 2014?

The tools:

• Webviews
  • WebView not necessairly the same as the built-in browser on the device.
• Apache Cordova
• Normal mobile web development

What it is

• Good code and style re-use across platforms
• Approximately the same level of difficulty as making a mobile site if you stay mostly within what is built-in to browser.

What it is not

• A promise that you will never see or smell Java/Objective C
• A promise that you will not install XCode, Eclipse (or Android Studio)

Hard bits

• Old android is a challenge

  if (android < 4.4) {
    webview = ! chrome;
    webview = old;
    console.log = primitive // strings only, party like its 1999
  }

• Cordova plugin ecosystem is small, immature

  • To make a plugin you need web, Android, iOS, $other skills

• Cordova docs are not amazing (but have improved).

It gets better

• Android 4.4+, iOS 6+ allow you to attach dev tools to the webview
  • Sadly Android 4.0 - 4.3 is still almost 50% of the install base
• Browser emulation of small screens/mobile devices is very helpful.

Recommendations

• Same JS framework trade-offs apply as for a mobile website.

• You need a build step.

  • Minification still matters
  • You will want to target different environments

• Do as much developement as possible in the browser. Use your build process to stub out the bits of Cordova that your app requires.

• Become somewhat competent with the Android/iOS dev tools

  • You don't need to know heaps of Java/ObjC but knowing how to drive the IDEs and do basic debugging is helpful

  // Objective C
  NSLog("Reveal thyself: @%", thing);

  // Java
  import android.util.log;
  Log.d("Reveal thyself: ", someThing);

• Absolutely must test on real devices - emulators are mostly useless.

Alternatives

• Some things build on top of Cordova e.g. ionic framework
  • Have not used them but presume same trade-offs as vanilla Cordova.
• Xamarin - uses C# and builds against the operating system native frameworks e.g. Cocoa on iOS

Q & A