The document discusses the differences between native and hybrid mobile app development, highlighting their benefits and drawbacks. It emphasizes the importance of webviews, their access to native capabilities, and offers advice for effective development practices. The author encourages understanding user needs and thorough testing on real devices.

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