Web- ja natiiviteknologiat mobiilisovellusten kehityksessä
Erkkilä, Jussi-Pekka · Aaltodoc (Aalto University) · 2013
In recent years, the mobile application development has become an increasingly important area in the software industry. However, there are multiple different and incompatible mobile platforms and ecosystems on the market. The issue for application developers is supporting all the different devices and platforms. New web programming technologies, such as CSS3 and HTML5, bring new opportunities for the mobile application development. Since practically every mobile device includes a web browser, web technologies provide a way to cover almost all modern mobile devices by writing a single application. This thesis reviews the current status of HTML5 and other web technologies, and compares them to the native, platform-specific development technologies. The main focus of the thesis is to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the web technologies in mobile application development, and how the web technologies affect on resource usage, performance and user experience in mobile applications. As a conclusion we state that whereas the native technologies provide an optimal user experience and performance, the web technologies provide fast and flexible way to produce cross-platform mobile applications. The web technologies already provide a competitive alternative to the native technologies. However, the best technology for implementing a mobile application depends on several factors, such as business objectives, target audience and technical requirements.