Hybrid Mobile Application Development Using an Existing Web Application
David Norrestam, Philip Burenstam Linder · 2015
Mobile applications are today an important way for companies to reach their customers. Developing a mobile application could require a lot of resources, especially if the application is to be made from scratch. However, an alternative for a company with an existing web application, is making use of the logic in the existing web application, to create a hybrid mobile application. In this thesis, two different approaches to developing an Android application were evaluated. The application to be developed consisted of classes for communication with native Android functions, and an encapsulated (existing) web application, making use of the functions provided by the aforementioned classes to extend its functionality. In one of the approaches, Android Framework was used for developing the hybrid application, and in the other approach, PhoneGap framework was used. For evaluation, we recorded the development effort required in each of the two approaches, for a quantitative comparison, and also examined the structure of the developed applications, for a qualitative comparison. Development effort was estimated by measuring logical lines of code (LLoC) of the resulting application. The results show that a lower development effort is required when developing using PhoneGap framework, than in the Android framework. However, we noticed that developing using Android framework provides more control over the application life cycle, and can thus be a preferable option when a more advanced application needs to be developed.