Talk about different experiences related with mobile web and the android webview. Native vs Hybrid. Drawbacks and benefits of native and hybrid applications

1. @fernando_cejas
WEBVIEW: The Fifth Element

2. Who am I?
• GDG Organizer
• Android, Agile and
technology Geek
• NFC Actions App
• Mobile Developer
@fernando_cejas
http://www.fernandocejas.com/

3. Agenda
• Native vs web
• Web developers
• Native developers
• Benefits and drawbacks
• The webview
• Experiences
• Advices

4. What the hell…? …I am a native developer

5. Why the title? What were you thinking
about?

6. Actually…
• Activities
• Intents
• Services
• Widgets
• ...and Webview!!!

7. Native vs web???

8. Web developers? Designers?

9. Native developers…????

10. Benefits of native development
• Default OS look & feel (UI conventions)
• Performance
• Access to device hardware (GPS, etc)
• App store/marketplace distribution
• Benefit from latest OS enhancements

11. Drawbacks of native development
• Tied to the particular OS you built for
• Maintaining a multi OS team/skill-set
• Dealing with the app store approval
process
• Keeping app in sync with OS updates

12. Benefits of hybrid development
• Common codebase for multiple OS's
• Access to device hardware (GPS, etc)
• App store/marketplace distribution
• Skills you already have (HTML, CSS, JS)
• Potential code reuse in web site/app

13. Drawbacks of hybrid development
• Build for lowest common denominator
• 3rd party SDK's might lag behind OS
– Want to use feature X? Wait for an
implementation in abstraction layer
• An abstraction layer can have bugs of
its own. Have to determine if a bug is in
your code, the abstraction layer, or OS.

14. So, what should I build?
• Desktop web app
• Mobile web app
• Mobile native app

15. We can live together…

16. Webview and the mobile web…
• Webviews and Mobile web are
almost the same…

17. Webview and the mobile web…
• 2 small differences:
– Mobile web authenticates with
web session
– Webview sets up protocols links

20. Webview and the mobile web…
• 1 big difference:
– Through webviews we can
access native capabilities

22. Pitfalls…experiences?
• Android webview has a lot of bugs
• Too heavy widget (poor performance?)
• Differente capabilities depending on the OS
version.
• Cordova webview implementation (not a silver
bullet)

23. Some advice…and conclusions…
• Minimize number of connections
• Do not assume JS has loaded
• Minimize page weight
• Testing in your desktop is not enough
• Do not resize images on the client
• Have a version of the web that works
everywhere
• The most important: know your users
• Test on real devices

24. Any questions?

25. Thanks!
When you look at the dark side, careful you
must be ... for the dark side looks back.
@fernando_cejas
www.fernandocejas.com