Beyond Web/Native/Hybrid

The Past

Web Apps (2007)

The full Safari engine is inside of iPhone. And so, you can write amazing Web 2.0 and Ajax apps that look exactly and behave exactly like apps on the iPhone. And these apps can integrate perfectly with iPhone services. […] And guess what? There’s no SDK that you need!

Steve Jobs

Native Apps (2008)

With the SDK in iPhone 2.0 we’re opening the same native APIs and tools we use internally.

Scott Forstall

Hybrid Apps (2008)

It’s a powerful example of exactly why you might want to create a hybridized program using both iPhone web development and the SDK.

Christopher Allen and Shannon Appelcline

The Present

What is native?

Common misconception

A native app is programmed in a platform specific language with platform specific APIs. […] When starting new apps you should consider using Kotlin for Android and Swift for iOS, rather than Java and Objective-C.

Robert Virkus

Reality

The Android NDK is a toolset that lets you implement parts of your app in native code, using languages such as C and C++.

Android Developers Site

Do three categories suffice?

The Future

Three main categories

  • Endemic Apps Apps built with the platform SDK
  • Pandemic Apps (Don’t worry, not the term for everyday use) Apps built with tools available on all relevant platforms
  • Ecdemic Apps Apps built with external tools and languages

Complete Overview