What is the Technology Behind Mobile Apps?
What is the technology behind mobile apps? This very much depends on the mobile app.
With over 4.97 billion mobile internet users accounting for 59.16% of website traffic worldwide, developers are turning to multiple technologies to keep up with the demand. Mobile apps fall into categories like native, web-based, cross-platform, and hybrid, and various technologies power them all.
Depending on the user preferences and requirements, these are the technologies behind mobile apps.
A. Native Mobile Apps
Native mobile apps are software applications built to run on a specific operating system (OS) or platform. For instance, the majority of the best PA Casino apps are designed to run specifically on iOS, Android, or Windows platforms.
These mobile apps offer superior performances and effects by leveraging each operating system’s unique features. As a result, online casinos use these features to give gamers a unique experience.
The following are some common technologies behind native mobile apps:
1. Swift for iOS
Swift is the technology behind the most amazing mobile apps on iPhones today. It is Apple Developer’s unique, powerful, and effective programming language for developing mobile applications that run on watchOS, macOS, and iOS.
This technology is currently making a strong market statement as one of the technologies implementing modern programming practices. In addition, its UI package, known as swiftUI, simplifies the development of complex interfaces. This technology takes an entirely modern approach to app development. The amount of code required to build apps is less, easier, and more efficient than many alternatives. Objective-C is another example of the technology behind native iOS mobile apps.
2. Java for Android
Although Java is a platform-independent programming language, It remains one of the most popular Android mobile app development tools. While this may sound confusing, most Android mobile app developers prefer Java for Android instead of iOS. This is because the iOS platform doesn’t have a Java Virtual Machine. As such, developers have to compile the Java input to the Objective-C code for it to run.
The Java programming language is reputable for its high security and object-oriented nature. As such, it is the technology responsible for many Android apps found on the Google Play Store.
B. Mobile Web Apps
Instead of downloading an app, all you need to access a mobile web application is a web browser. Web apps are designed to be viewed responsively on a smartphone (both Android and iOS devices), so long you have a browser to use as the interface, as they are not native to any platform.
Most popular applications like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook have mobile web versions. The technologies behind them include the following:
3. HTML5
HTML5 stands for version 5 of the Hypertext Transfer Markup Language. This technology is often used for developing app-like web page(s) capable of functioning on any browser.
It offers numerous features that ensure responsive designs, which adapts the app to varying screen resolutions, sizes, and orientations. It also remedies mobile web development challenges like unstable network connectivity using features like the localStorage and sessionStorage APIs.
4. CSS Frameworks
CSS frameworks are one of the most widely used technologies for powering the responsive designs necessary for web mobile applications. These frameworks facilitate an aesthetically pleasing, efficient, and optimal viewing experience on web apps.
They are often combined with HTML, JavaScript, and HTML5 technologies to build web apps, as they offer pre-built media queries and styles meant to make the process easier and more efficient.
The following are the most common CSS frameworks behind many responsive mobile web apps.
- Bootstrap
- Tailwind CSS
- Materialize
- UIKit
- Bulma, etc.
C. Hybrid and Cross Platform Mobile Apps
As the names suggest, these mobile apps can be built for multiple operating systems and platforms.
However, while hybrid apps can run on both an operating system and the web, cross-platform mobile apps cannot run on the web but can run on both Android and iOS platforms.
The technologies powering this category of apps include the following:
5. React Native for Hybrid Apps
React Native is a JavaScript framework combining aspects of both native and web app development. It was built and launched by Facebook in 2015. The technology is based on ReactJS and involves writing JavaScript code like a developer would when building a native application.
It improves developer experience by replacing HTML and CSS with the XML Markdown language JSX.
6. Xamarin for Cross-platform apps
Developers use Xamarin to power cross-platform apps to give the native app experience by leveraging native APIs. This relatively new tool is based on the Microsoft technology stack and uses the C# language for development.
The technology powers most mobile apps by helping developers write shareable and reusable code quicker with a low maintenance cost, an awesome user experience, and a relatively easy testing experience.
