Author: zc_admin

With the advent of the digital era, businesses are turning digital and making the lives of people easier, faster, and hassle-free. Nowadays people barely have any time from their busy schedule and daily routines. Therefore, it is obvious that they look for instant solutions at their doorstep at reasonable prices.

Here the beauty of on-demand mobile apps comes into play. You can get everything you need by just a simple tap on your phone, like taxi, movie tickets, food, hotel booking and what not. This is one of the reasons why every business is now heading towards mobile app development.

Are you planning to develop on-demand food ordering app? If yes, Zenocraft is the best option for you. They have a highly skilled and experienced team to execute your project and achieve the desired results.

You need to know the essential features to build an extraordinary app for your food business before developing an on-demand food ordering app. 

Here are the top essential features :

1. Push Notifications

Nowadays online food ordering is growing at a tremendous rate, it is an obvious thing to have more than one food delivery app on your smartphone. To stay ahead of your competitors and create visibility, sending push notifications is the best way. It helps businesses to stay connected with the customers. These messages are very helpful in conveying all kinds of information such as discounts, offers, location-based order dropped messages and so on.

You should ensure that your notifications must add value to the users rather than a plain commercial message. Always try to manage push notifications in such a way that they help your business app grow substantially.  You should constantly engage your potential customers and notify them about discounts, special offers, and loyalty programs. By doing this, you can quickly grab customer attention and engage them.

2. Discount/Rewards, Cashback and loyalty programs

Discounts and special offers are the best way to attract more customers to your food delivery app. You should regularly offer great discounts to engage customers. According to the study, around 40% of users use a food ordering app to look for discounts and cashback, while 25% of users use these apps just to earn loyalty points.

It is critical to draw in potential customers to win brand loyalty than to create brand awareness. This is the major reason why big companies pay more attention to their loyalty points. For example, Starbucks effectively expanded its sales by 80% when they launched loyalty programs.

3. Real time GPS tracking of Food delivery

Real time GPS tracking is one of the most essential features of food delivery apps. This feature enables customers to track the location of their food through real-time GPS. The main purpose of GPS is to offer two-way tracking and functioning. It helps to recognize the user’s location to deliver the food. As soon as the area is confirmed, users can easily track the progress of the order and movement of the delivery personnel.

This feature is used by the leading food delivery apps to offer the best experience to the customers. A few of the great APIs for this feature include Google Maps, Here maps, or Waze’s Navigation. For example, Uber uses Google Maps on all the platforms.

4. Easy Payment Options

If you see from a business owner’s perspective, payments play a significant role in every business. Though it is the last process of the order placement, if a customer faces any minor/major problem then they won’t ever try again. Therefore, it is very important to make the payment procedure exceedingly productive and simple to use. Also, a customer must have all the payment options listed in your on-demand food delivery app. They can use the best of their choice.

You can incorporate all the payment gateways or mobile wallet app services that are available in the market such as Google Pay, PayPal, Amazon Pay, iOS Wallet, Stripe, Credit/Debit Card, Online Banking and Cash On Delivery (COD) alternatives. You can likewise offer promo or voucher code usage from a similar page.

5. Social Media Integration.

There’s no doubt that in the past few years, social media has contributed a lot when it comes to online marketing. It is one of those uncertain viewpoints which improve customers’ decision. With the help of social media integration, customers can easily share photos or videos of their favorite dish with their friends and family. Also, it is helpful to make your food app noticeable in social media and can easily attract customers on a regular basis.

Customers can leverage the most out of social media. Social Media is helpful for Businesses as they can connect social media with Loyalty/Discount programs to attract existing customers to earn points and rewards by inviting new customers. This incredibly helps in drawing in potential customers, while in the meantime attracting a onetime customer to turn into a recurring one.

6. Reviews and Ratings

Customers are the soul of every business, so they take feedback and Reviews from them to improve their business. Every feedback from the customers is of great help to know the downside of their business and their on-demand delivery app. This feature allows the customers to compare the dishes then rate and review various other restaurants with their listed dishes on the app.

This is a well-tested and great way for businesses to know how customers are responding to their apps. If you get good feedback from the customers and have good ratings, then the chances are high that lots of people will prefer visiting your app. Thus, adding feedback and review system would help your business to get immediate and quick bites of knowledge so that you get the insights into what modifications you should do in your app in the future for better customer experience.

7. Easy Order Placement

If you have a quick and easy payment method on the app then most of the people would prefer to place the order online. If you have different payment options, then it would be a great help for the users to place the order online and make the payment through their choice of payment method. Also, this would help users to choose your app ahead of other apps available tin the market because you have different payment options and easy steps to place the order. 

8. User Interface design

The User Interface is a very essential part of the food delivery app because it helps the users to communicate with the app and order services. This is only possible if your app has been designed from a friendly usability perspective. You should have a great user interface (UI) design for customers to place the orders online. 

The users should have the different options to effectively explore and discover what they need. If the page is taking time to load, the user experience will be affected. Therefore, it is considered as one of the most significant components of the app for its progress. It should be fast and must load all the elements very quickly for great user experience with better app engagement and conversion rate.

Conclusion

Whether you are an entrepreneur investing in your next big project of online food ordering service or you are a restaurant owner hoping to improve your sales, customer loyalty, and retention rate – the above features are a must-have in your app to improve the user experience.

Are we still missing something important on the feature list? Or you have any experience related to food ordering app development? You can always share it with us in the comments section given below.

If you are looking for an experienced team to develop your food delivery app then Zenocraft is the best team to achieve your desired results. 

Contact us:- https://lnkd.in/gZckipH

Published by : Prathmesh Vyas

Business Manager

The educational system around the global arena has gone through a major change over the last decade. Undoubtedly, online learning or digital education is the direction of the day. To be precise, one of the key players in the educational industry that have brought the innovative transformation is the educational mobile app that supports the learners in their learning process.
We feel blessed as we don’t have to attend those monotonous lectures and follow the old conventional method of learning. Studies never seemed to be that simpler; thanks to the valuable educational mobile apps. Do you think that all educational mobile apps have equivalent potential to give you an added edge over your competitors in the examination? Nope.
Most mobile applications claim to offer their finest features, but in reality, only a few educational mobile app features are able to succeed. This you would know with your own practical experience. Some educational apps in the market provide the optimum explanation of numerous topics in different subjects; provide informative and rich content with the live tutorials, while others fail to meet the user’s expectations.

1. Developing a Powerful and Supportive Database

In order to place your educational app in the driving seat, you must have an architecturally powerful and supportive database. All the information about the study material and guide is uploaded onto a database. You should update them on a regular basis with the latest information, videos, content, facts, figures, and statistics. The database must smooth the progress of the process of learning, the students should get quick access to all the information with the tip of a finger. The database should not hang even if it is running on slow internet speed.

2. Comprehensive and Valuable Content

Content that instantly captures the attention of the learner in one glance will allow your educational mobile app an opportunity to be downloaded several times more than other apps. Just keep an eye on these vital factors :

• Comprehensive content which should be worthy of reading.
• The content should be developed for targeted audiences.
•  Use the simplest of languages that can be easily understood because all the learners do not have the same grasping power.
• The content should be mobile-friendly.

3.  Interactive Session with Live Tutorials

This is an essential asset which you can bank upon to promote your app amongst the different users. Interaction with the teacher can always help the students in solving their problems and clearing their doubts. You can create a virtual classroom atmosphere in addition to providing live tutorials by adding the ‘chat’ feature.
You can always request the learners to give their valuable feedback, whether they get the benefit from the interactive session or not. Based on the response from the users, we can decide on what improvement is required on the app.

4. Regular Mock /Practice Test On Various Topics

You can offer mock/practice tests on various topics and subjects; the students will be able to judge their actual preparation before the examination. You can upload some test papers; the learners can download them which would be helpful too. Believe it; most of the students search for such test papers, this feature will not only benefit the learners but enrichment your app into the profitable zone.

5. Easy Login To Profile With Dashboard Facility

While developing the educational app, you should ensure that you have easy login functionality. With this feature, the user can easily create his profile with a few steps. You must provide a dashboard where the user can save their personal preferences and choose the topic for learning.

6. The Vitality of User Interface

This is one area where most of the developers do not pay much attention. Due to which, their apps suffer in the competitive market. You don’t have to sail on the same boat, but instead, provide an excellent user-friendly User Interface with attractive outlook and best functionality. 

7. Providing Personal Element Or Individual Space

You should keep in mind the specific individual needs of the user while developing the educational app. This means providing a one-stop-shop app where the user will get everything in a single mobile application.

On the other note, it is also vibrant to offer individual freedom where the students and the teachers can hold free discussions and choose their own method of learning. Simplifying the topics which are hard to understand for most of the students, will help in increasing the popularity of the app.

8. Using Social Media Platform To Good Effect

Your app cannot progress or flourish without the support of social media tools. It is up to you how effectively you can use the tools to maximize benefits. Whatever information or content on a subject or topic you are uploading into the app, you can share them on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. You can create a YouTube channel too where you can post tutorial videos related to your educational app.
In this way, you are directly getting in touch with the new users and promoting your app as well.

9. Any Idea Regarding Push Notifications

Do you have any knowledge about how the Push Notification works? In a simple language, it means to keep the user updated with all the relevant information. However, one must adjust his settings, also inform them when downloading and installing.

Thus, a Push Notification is an empowering tool that allows people to send messages to a particular school and other users. You can consider this a type of advertisement or important reminder on any aspect of the app.

10. Integration to Reach Targeted Audience

Integration in an educational mobile app has its own significance as it helps to reach out to the targeted audiences. It helps the user to share information ad categorize them into different segments that include the school by school or grade by grade. This feature helps us manage the flow of information. The user can browse your website from their mobile phone.

Conclusion

Education is getting digitalized, and the best educational apps in the market are already ruling in the app stores. Therefore, if you want to compete successfully with the top educational apps, the above features will surely prove to be more than handy. And one more thing, you have to be very sharp in acquiring the information on the latest technical developments; plus, use your creativity to provide the learners something extraordinary.

Contact us:- https://lnkd.in/gZckipH

Published by : Prathmesh Vyas

Business Manager

1. Book a ride- (Now or Later)

The “book now or later” feature is the primary feature that your Uber-clone app should incorporate. With the book now feature, the users can easily get their rides and travel from one place to another. With the book later feature, users can book their rides for a future trip.

You must have the following input to book the ride

• Pick-up location
• Drop location
• The type of vehicle the user wants to select
• The time and date, in the case of the book later feature

Book later is a very helpful feature for the user about to leave office, home, or going for a doctor’s appointment, they can easily schedule a ride or make an advance booking for the ride, so they don’t get late.

Therefore, it is the most important feature of a cab booking app that taxi startups or businesses can consider when developing an Uber-like app.

2. Real-time tracking for driver

When users are unknown about their driver, they feel don’t feel comfortable. This feature willhelp the user to track the way so they can relax and enjoy their journey. Also, it would improve their overall experience of traveling in your cab. You should include the real-time tracking feature into your app with the help of GPS integration.

The feature will enable the users to track the driver’s location and which way he is traveling. In case, the driver has not moved from a particular location or, they are taking a long route, the users can always call them and direct them to the pick-up location. This makes life easy for the users as well as the drivers.

3. Allow others to follow ride in real-time

Safety comes first for any person, and the riders always feel safe when they can share their ride details with someone close to them. If you allow for the feature in your Uber-clone app, then you have won over your audience’s trust. The idea is to allow someone else to keep an eye on the route taken by the driver, and also let someone know if you have reached home safely or not.

Also, it would help when you are new to the city and unaware of the route. Sharing the detailscan also help you get an idea of whether or not the route taken by the driver is right or not. The person with whom you are sharing the details will also give insights into the route taken by the driver.

4. Multiple payment options

Not everyone is comfortable paying via cash or card for the ride they take. Some riders don’t carry cash while, a few others are wary of sharing their card details in the application. The best way to make it easy for the riders is to include multiple payment options and allow the rider to select from the different options available.

If the person wants to pay using a mobile wallet, then you should give them multiple options to make the payment.

You should offer online as well as offline payment options to the user. In some cases, you should also allow the user to opt for prepaid and post-paid rides and allow them to choose thepayment method they find most convenient.

5. Preferred driver

A regular Uber rider who takes the Uber rides for their office comes across several drivers, and after a point, they start having preferences based on their experience with the drivers. Theapp should also allow the users to choose their preferred drivers as that would help them be the owner of the choice and will give your business an added advantage.

When the user goes to book the ride, always ask them if they have a driver’s preference. This will appeal to them and allow them to choose from the past drivers they have had for the ride to the office. If the driver is available, the app will automatically allow the ride to them.

6. Add multiple drop-off points

Traveling with friends? Each of you lives in different locations along the same route. Allow the user to select multiple drop-off points on your app, thus making their life easy. When you are booking your ride, make sure to add the multiple stops that the driver will have to make along the route. This can be added to the destination itself.

In case your user has to change the drop-offs during the trip, make sure your app allows the same.The app should calculate the fare accordingly. In case you want to split the fare with the friends, make sure to choose the option “Adjust on the Go” feature, which adjusts the fareas the trip proceeds, and you change the drop-off locations.

7. Driver review and rating

Why a driver’s story is important for the users? You get to know more about the driver who is driving you to the destination. The reviews and ratings tell you a lot about how the driver is, how they behave and whether they offer a good experience to the riders or not. The users who have ridden with the driver in the past will share their feedback, and help you know whatto expect.

This is one of the important features of the Uber App. You should allow your users to give honest feedback about the drivers. This will also help you look into what made the experiencegood or bad. In case, you need to improve something, you can do so with the help of the reviews and ratings that the users have given out. The reviews and ratings are an excellent way of improving your business.

8. Trip history

In this feature, you can know the ride details, including how much you will be charged, how much you had spent on Uber rides, you can see details of your past route, the driver details, and other such things. Well, the trip history feature is an important aspect of your Uber-clone app.

Make sure you store the user’s trip history and make it available in their profile. At the same time, trip history should also be a part of the driver’s app. This will help both of them check into the trip details as and when required. The driver will be able to track their past earnings with the trip history.

9. In-app chat or call option

There will be times when the user would want to connect with the driver to know their whereabouts or to direct them. in some cases, the user would want to chat with the support team. The in-app chat or call feature helps them with these things. For example, if the driver is unable to find the address, then they can make the call or chat with the customer and find out the exact address or get the directions.

10. Save destinations

In case you are going to choose the same destinations in the future, then instead of typing the same destination again and again, you should save the destinations. This would save time andyou can book your rides and manage them faster.

This feature enriches the overall booking experience that your rider gets with the app. You can save the places by giving them appropriate names such as home, office, second home, etc. You can simply save the details and then just add them to the destination when booking. Your app will recommend these destinations to the user.

Summary

Developing an app like Uber is not an easy task. You need to decide the target audience for your app based on the app idea you have and the segment you are planning to cater to. Apart from defining the plan and the strategy as well as the ultimate goal of the app, you must plan for the Uber app features that you should include in your ride-sharing app. Make sure that you include these ten features as they are basic to the Uber-clone structure.

If you have an Uber-like app idea, decided to build a similar app,connect with us for end-to-end app development. We are a leading mobile app development company and have already developed an Uber-like app including different features and functionalities.

If you have any query related to how much it would cost to develop an app like Uber, how to hire taxi app developer for Uber like taxi app, what is the importance of developing an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) of an app, or how to make money with an app idea on Uber clone app, just fill our contact us form. We will get back to you shortly to solve your queries of Uber-like taxi app development. The consultation won’t cost you any money.

Published by : Prathmesh Vyas

Business Manager

The success in mobile E-Commerce has led to the creation of mobile apps and platforms in recent times. Users are more comfortable shopping via Mobile App than a Website. Most of the companies are now focusing on improving the end-user experience, offering a robust technology infrastructure via cutting-edge mobile applications for E-Commerce Businesses.
Mobile comprises of around 65% of all E-Commerce transactions worldwide, and this figure is expected to increase further in the years to come. Apparently, there are big opportunities here. The biggest challenge any E-Commerce business would face is to stand out in the competition with a spectacular and interactive app that engages and retains buyers at every level. Zenocraft caters to the needs of clients in developing world-class Mobile Apps for their E-Commerce Businesses. 

Here are some of the essential features that your E-Commerce Mobile App should include to deliver an excellent user experience.

1. Simple Registration Process :
Most of the users don’t like to fill the long forms asking too much information. Make the registration process simple and put supreme required fields for easy action. Users hardly prefer the app which demands too much information for registration.

2. Multiple Payment Options :
It is important to have multiple payment options for users in the checkout. Try to integrate a safe, secure, common and hassle-free payment options in the checkout

3. Simple Navigation :
One of the vital things to consider in the E-Commerce mobile app is the content and screen size. Since the mobile screen has limited space, it is important to ensure that the app and the content do not jam-packed on the device. So, designing a simple and neat layout is crucial. It should deliver seamless navigation and display your brand/products in the most impressive manner. Responsive design is the best solution, which automatically fits into any screen size, and renders an immersive experience.

4. Product Gallery :
A product page is incomplete without a proper product gallery that includes several of the item pictures from different angles. Most of the users hesitate to buy online because they can’t view the product like in a traditional, brick-and-mortar store. Also, you can offer 3D product visualizations where users can spontaneously turn the product around to see it better.

5. Shopping Cart :
A must-have in any online store and e-commerce mobile apps are no exception. By adding a shopping cart, you build a positive user experience and allow users the flexibility they would like while purchasing. A user can add a product to the cart and purchase it later. That way, adding products to the shopping cart once again isn’t necessary, saving users their time.

6. Shipping Options :
You build a positive user experience by allowing users to choose from different shipping options and adding multiple shipping addresses easily. For example, Home address, Work address, etc. The user can see the available shipping options and how much each of them costs (nice-to-have) and the estimated delivery time for each option.

7. Wishlist :
Adding items to Wishlist is something many online shoppers are used to do while browsing their favorite online stores. Users can take advantage of this feature to mark the items they like without having to add them to their shopping cart.

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8. Order Summary :
Many online stores provide a short order summary before taking the users to the payment screen. By providing an order summary, they can verify before payment, you eliminate the risk of returns, which take time and money to resolve, affecting the user experience negatively. The user will be able to check whether the order includes all the items they wish to purchase. Also, they can see the total amount to be paid, including the costs of shipping chosen in previous stages.

9. Flash Discounts :
Sales and promotions in mobile shopping apps are just as effective as they are at brick-and-mortar shops. You can easily notify users about upcoming events. This feature would improve the user experience and increase sales at your store as the users would be reminded through notifications on a regular basis about the events where they can get the discounts which would increase the sales.

10. Feedback System :
The importance of having some way for the users to leave feedback about your app is very critical. Whether it is a button or a link to open an email doesn’t matter; the important part is that you give your users a quick way to report bugs and provide suggestions or criticisms. Users will be happy to know that you are open to their feedback and their inputs can shape the future of your app.

11. Push Notifications :
Push notifications are the coolest, easiest, and most effective way to engage users and get them back to your store without any hard work involved. Simply promote your fresh arrivals, discount offers, or offer a discount on products that are left in the cart with push notifications. These notifications encourage immediate action. You can pair up this feature with analytics to see a substantial increase in sales in no time. Experts found that push notifications are likely to receive more response than any other way of promotion like text messages or emails.

12. Social Media Login :
Use Facebook Connect, Instagram, or another single sign-in technology solution to allow your users to use their social media logins to sign in the mobile app (and keep them signed in). This feature would give the user a way to retrieve their username/password or remind them which social network they used when setting up the app.

13. Eliminate too many Clicks :
If you ask users to register, sign up, or fill out forms, be zealous about eliminating every possible click, or tap, from the design. Ask for less information. Conversion rates fall sharply when extra work is required to sign up. This is mistake novice designers make over and over. You have a short window to hook the users, and if they had a bad experience, they won’t try again.

14. Analytics :
Apart from delivering an excellent user experience, the core objective of an E-Commerce mobile app is to earn revenues. Therefore, analytics is an important feature that your app should have. Understanding the user’s behavior and buying patterns on your app is of utmost importance. You can get the information about the user’s behavior from the session time, cost of conversion, click-through rate, and accessing custom fields, all these lead to a higher revenue stream. The data gathered will help inspire improved updates.

15. Product scores and reviews :
The opinions of other users are the driving force of sales today. They help to build your reliability. Therefore, so many online stores allow their users to rate items and add comments where they share their experience of the product. Access to the user rating and comments is priceless for users who want to choose the best product on the market.

An E-Commerce mobile app should aim at providing a robust, user-friendly, and unique experience that makes online shopping a much simpler and seamless process. At the same time, it should include features that drive sales and increase revenues for your business.

Published by : Prathmesh Vyas

Business Manager

PHP

Web presence today is not only having a digital footprint. They are equal to a physical store as well as a solution to business problems. They provide basic information and also act as an effective tool to implement many business strategies.

What PHP stands for, or a recursive acronym for it is Hypertext Preprocessor. PHP is the most widely adopted open-source general-purpose scripting language which best suits web development and can be easily embedded into HTML. Earlier, it used to be known as Personal Home Pages, giving it the universally used acronym, PHP. It offers a variety of benefits to businesses and otherwise, that want a dynamic website in the highly saturated market that partly functions through its virtual existence.

There are multiple reasons for PHP being the first choice of many PHP developers. Flexibility, ease of use and ease of learning are some benefits that make it a preference over other languages. Although, not only PHP but most other languages become monotonous and repetitive. This is where a PHP framework will come in handy.

Why use PHP?

A few of the many advantages that PHP offers are:
• It supports Oracle, MySQL, Sybase, and more
• It is compatible with servers like Apache and IIS
• It’s easy functions, methods and syntax enables smoothness in development
• It runs on most platforms like Windows and Linux
• You can integrate it with open source software like Joomla, Drupal and more
• It supports database management systems also.

All in all, it is highly beneficial for any business trying to make their presence felt in the virtual world with a compelling website that is not only easy to use and navigate through, but also easy to develop in the initial phases of a business.

PHP Frameworks

In a nutshell, PHP frameworks streamline web applications developed and written in PHP by implementing a basic structure. These frameworks enable rapid application development to reduce the amount of repetitive coding for PHP developers. These frameworks are perfect for developing stable apps by ensuring genuine database interaction and coding on the presentation layer. Time is of an essence and to save this resource, these frameworks allow you to focus and channelize your effort and skill on creating the actual web application, instead of wasting time in writing lines of repetitive code.

The idea behind this useful tech is called MVC (Model View Controller) which is an architectural pattern in programming that confines business logic from the user interface allowing separation between the two. This is ideally called separation of concerns.

Scope of PHP development

The areas where PHP development will deem useful are as follows:
• Server-side scripting: This is the traditional match for the use of PHP benefits. PHP parser, a server and a web browser are enough for functionality. The server needs to be run with a PHP installation. You can also access the PHP program even through an output with a web browser, with an output accessible through a web browser, or it can also be viewed through a server.
• Command-line scripting: There is also a provision to run a PHP script in the absence of a server or a browser. Your only need is a PHP parser. These scripts can be used even for simple text processing tasks.
• Writing desktop applications: When it comes to creating a desktop application with a graphical user interface(GUI), PHP might not be your best bet. but, in case you have a PHP developer who is equipped with the ability to use advanced PHP features, they can use PHP-GTK to write those programs. This comes with additional benefits like the ability to write cross-platform applications.

All in all…

PHP frameworks are boon for developers to eliminate the need for repetitive coding because how PHP works is that it speeds up the developing process, and also ensures precise coding while the developers develop web applications. The way how PHP code is parsed is through these frameworks that are designed to equip development with the richness of outcomes, of applications while it tightens security by reducing risks of bugs in your coding.

Due to its forgiving nature, even for beginner and intermediate level developers, these frameworks ensure a learning curve that other languages might not be able to provide. While some PHP experts deem it debatable to have need of using frameworks, it is the most ideal solution when time is of the essence, and deadlines are tight.

There are multiple and a variety of frameworks available today, giving PHP developers more options that could fit their needs pertaining to features, support, speed, scalability and much more.

We are providing the IT solutions for enterprise applications as well. We are providing the services for web application development and mobile app development . We are leading Information Technology service provider company. Please request a quote, We will get back to you in a while.

The chicken and egg dilemma is something that science might have answered but the dilemma between native mobile apps and cross-platform mobile apps is one that has divided the tech community while it constantly undergoes evolution like any other concept does.

Just like a coin, both native and cross-platforms have a variety of pros and cons.
TL;DR, You have to make a choice based on which one fits best your project. There is no universal answer to which one rules. One size fits all approach is not one that is applicable here. These pros and cons are factors that directly affect everyone involved with the development of the app.

To make a decision, well, to make an informed decision, let us look at both of these platforms to find which one fits your bill.

What are native apps?
These are applications developed for a particular OS, for the specific platform. It is made to measure, following the requisites of the mobile operating system. A native app has access to utilize the hardware, basically, the features of that particular device. These features like camera, GPS, contact list, notification system, ect. It is developed with a mature ecosystem and complies with the user guidelines of the OS, native to the user’s OS- giving it the name. It not only performs faster but also gives the user the feeling of “something right”.

The in-app interaction follows the same look and feel, enabling consistency in the experience to be easily navigable and quick accessibility. These apps are available for download from app stores- Google play store for Android apps and Apple app store for iOS. This can boost app downloads by 800%.

The drawbacks of developing native apps might be of consideration for you. With all these provisions, there also comes the cost. Developing native apps is traditionally costly. Since you have to develop the app for two separate operating systems, the cost doubles instantaneously. Double the amount of developers, who are also harder to find, and they charge more than cross-platform developers.

Updation and maintenance becomes a hassle because the manager will have to deal with double developer teams for both platforms. This, with a given that it will take more amount of time to develop from scratch. Also, there is no guarantee that the apps will be accepted.

What are Cross Platform apps?
Also known as hybrid apps, as their name suggests, they are developed for multiple platforms while they behave like native apps. They could be called a perfect marriage between a native app and a web app. Cross-platform apps are developed using HTML, Javascript, CSS and they run in Webview. It could be known as the lates approach to create apps for both platforms, Android and iOS. There are multiple cross-platform application development tools that allow developers to build these apps with minimal trouble.

These apps are not only cheaper when compared to developing native apps, but can be developed faster, negating the need for multiple developing teams. updation and maintenance of such apps also becomes easier. A rumour you might have heard about cross platform apps is that they are of poor quality. PayPal, Uber Eats and Facebook are some examples of hybrid apps that work just fine, proving that quality is not a drawback of such apps.

If you are wondering, what then, are the cons of developing hybrid apps, then let us tell you, hybrid apps are functionally slower than native apps. They might be cheaper than native apps to develop, but are costlier than web apps because of the involvement of wrapper. Basically, dependence on a third party platform arises. Comparatively, cross platform apps are less interactive than native apps, given the limited access to the native APIs.

The aspect of unified UX also comes into consideration. You can’t follow Apple’s HMI guidelines or Google’s guidelines in isolation. You have to factor in both to provide the same experience to Android and iOS users alike. Unification is not an easy task.

Which is better is not the question, which one is better for whom is the question. Knowing the benefits and drawbacks of both ways to develop apps will enable you to make an informed decision, custom to your needs.