Why you should develop Mobile Apps in HTML 5

Mobile presence either through mobile App or website is increasingly becoming the new norm. The new generation begins its search through Tablets, Phablets and smartphones; and this includes searching for services in the local area. From the business point of view this need begs the question of what would the best and cost efficient strategy to offer mobile services?

Traditional Mobile Development Lifecycle

 
Consider this life-cycle:

1. Your IT team or a consultant team analyzes your mobile requirements and prepares a use case document. 
2. User interfaces and wireframes are designed. 
3. After analyzing the requirements and designing the UIs, the team proceeds to write separate code base for each smart phone you wish to support (IOS, Android and Windows Mobile etc.) 
4. Once your application is ready, you submit it to different mobile stores. In IPhone’s case, you will have to get it certified through Apple Store. The Apple store itself can take up to couple of months. 
5. And finally you deploy your applications 

The problem with the traditional development methodology is that you will end up with separate application for each smartphone you will support. Each of these applications will have to be maintained and updated if you make any changes and will cost you time and money in the long run.
This is where HTML 5 shines and comes to rescue!

Solution

What is HTML 5?

HTML 5 is a newer version of HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) and is used to develop webpages. For smartphones HTML 5 can be used as a semi-application. Essentially when writing in HTML 5, you are developing a website which is capable of acting as an app in a smartphone  environment.

What are the benefits?

Biggest benefit of HTML 5 is that it is cheap, easy to learn and offer same experience as building a regular website. HTML 5 is compatible with all types of smartphones. It has shorter development cycle (compared to regular mobile programming). You can save time and money bypassing the IPhone’s app store certification.

What’s next? How to proceed?

If you are a beginner and have never developed a mobile application, you should start with JQuery. The JQuery offers pre-built themes and designs that will reduce your overall development time.

Two of my favorite sites to design the phone app are MobiJectify (http://www.mobjectify.com) and JQuery Mobile (http://www.jquerymobile.com/)