Why should I develop native mobile application (sometimes)?

When we faced the question about if we should develop a web mobile application or a native mobile application, there is no universal answer (although sometimes, reading some articles, it seems there is one). When we begin a new development, first of all we must begin with a requirements analysis and functionalities that we are going to implement, and based on these we can make decisions. Just like when an architect designs a building, does not arise if there are good or bad materials or techniques, the architect just think if these materials or techniques are suitable for this particular work. We should think about every developmet independently and carry out a specific analysis for the application we will develop (otherwise the bogeyman will come and he will take away all our work, developers

who worked during the software crisis will tell us that this is true).

The purpose of this post is to analyze the case of developing a mobile application for Sakai OAE, of course, this is my analysis and I will be happy to rectify any mistake or any approach that can be wrong. Anyway, if you are interested in something more generic, google is our friend, simply search for "native apps vs web mobile" and you could spend all evening reading tons of articlees about this subject.

During this GSoC, two mobile applications are being developed for Sakai, and each one follows a different approach. I sincerely believe that both decisions are correct. I'm sure that Kasun Lakpriya and Steve Swinsburg who are developing the web-based mobile application for Sakai CLE, will give you plenty of good reasons why a web application makes sense to Sakai CLE. I'll focus on Sakai OAE.

Sakai is a young web application OAE, based on well-recognized standards, such as ajax or json, its design completely revitalizes the user experience by improving the workflow for both teachers and students. It is a highly scalable application that is developed following best practices ... It is definitely a really cool a web application. In fact, thanks to the hard work being done by the ux team, we can browse the web application using a mobile device and the application still will look really nice. So, in my point of view, since we have a good web application that with small changes may well be a mobile web application, it makes more sense to try to take advantage of the possibilities that native applications will give us.

And what these possibilities are? Well these are some of them that we could use in Sakai OAE, but certainly these aren't the only ones:

• Connectivity (Off-line mode): Although it's becoming less common, not all places have a good Internet connection, in Spain from where I write at least this is so. And web applications need, obviously, Intenet connection to work (even though we can achive some things with html5 and Google Gears). So being able to have the application running all the time is an advantage, we won't lose an alarm that warning us a deadline of a job, or stop reading some content because we don't have an Internet connection.


• Improve the user experience: Native applications, in general, improve the user experience, not only by the performance they can achive, but to use elements of the user interface of the device itself, although, of course this can also be emulated. It is also very interesting the possibility of having the application running in the background and receive certain notifications, as twitter apps do.


• Device-based caching:Certain information could be store encrypted on the device itself, which is very useful for improving the user experience, not forcing him/her to introduce the same data each time.


• Using the device features: This property could seem a bit strange in case of an educational application, but if you think about it is not. For example, when a teacher creates an activity, he/she could not only tag the date and time whe the activity will be done, also it is possible to introduce aGPS address indicating the place where the activity is take place, which is really helpful if we think about field practices, especially large campus or for students with no spatial orientation (this is my case). And surely we could imagine a lot of creative utilities using phone services such as the agenda or the camera. Why should we limit it?


• Discoverability: It's really easy to find an application in the market / app store.


• Performance: This is, in my opinion, the jewel in the crown of native applications. We can develop threads, use devices notifications, and make the application run in the background... And in the case of our application, where normally users turn on the app early in the morning when they arrive to university and they won't turn off until they go home, this is a very interesting feature to exploit.

Although there are also mobile applications features negative, we can see the positive side of these (or at least, do not consider them so negative)

• Automatic Updates: Web applications are updated automatically, while in the case of native applications we should upload them to market/app store and wait util the user updates them. This is initially a point for Web applications, but from my point of view, this is not so negative for Sakai OAE. The mobile application of a large university, must be stable and not constantly updated unless absolutely necessary (I'm thinking of a security bug), so we shouldn't worry too much.


• The censorship of the market/app store: I have write market/app store because I don't want to not arouse suspicions, but really where the applications pass quality tests and can be rejected is at the appstore. Again, this seems quite negative, but an application is rejected by quality issues primarily (or duplicate a service of IOS, which is not the case), which obliges us to work hard on the quality of the application, and Apple is not particularly ambiguous on how we should develop applications. If we'll see it this way, I honestly do not think it's an inconvenience at all.

And since not everything could be so beautiful, there are features that are inherently negative (if you can see a positive side please tell me!):

• Reaching the audience: Although Android IOS and monopolize the market for mobile devices, these are not the only platforms, which makes our mobile applications fail to reach the audience. But as I mentioned in the introduction, Sakai OAE is a good web application that can be accessed from any mobile browser.
  


• Maintenance: This really is a handicap. A native application implies that we must develop at least two projects for IOS and Android, and the rise of Windows Phone makes me think than maybe for this one too. This multiplies the cost of development and maintenance. I'm developing it for IOS and Android, and I suffer the problems of implementing functions in one platform that are completely different in the other, I can not deny this. Some months ago I was naive because I though that the development and maintenance costs would be lower since both apps are restful applications and the same web services are called. Anyway, Sakai community is big and great and I think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

I don't mean that web applications can't work as native applications. And every day we will find new frameworks to simply the work and get better performance.

To summarize, I don't think there is no good or bad answer about what kind of app develop. This is my analysis, and of course there are many nuances to all the features I've listed, I won't be surprise me if I'm completely wrong in more than one point, so I encourage you to leave me any comment with your thoughts and talk on here or IRC #sakai where you can find me as AdaHopper.