Hybrid App Development and Ionic.
The story is about Hybrid app development using HTML5, JavaScript and Native bindings like Cordova and Ionic.
I started developing hybrid app with Ionic when it was at initial beta release. I was very much impressed by the way they share UI and UX experience on iOS and Android. So it took me 15 days to get fully functional iOS and Android app out of Ionic with production ready binaries. The app is about marking daily attendance using GPS location called “Smart Muster” which is available on Goolge Play store and App Store.
Development time (15 days for iOS and Android app !)
Required development time for Hybrid app using Ionic is super less as compared to Native and gives same feel on both the platforms.
Code maintenance
Super easy. As it share common components for both the platforms, we have to maintain only one code for both platforms and no code sharing required amoung developers.
Responsiveness and user feedbacks.
Hybrid app run inside WebViews and look like web app rather than native mobile app, user touch response is considerably slower and kills the user experience, which will cost you more in future production releases, if you are serious about your product. Another aspect regarding business logic of app have to be written in javascript only, if you want to make your app compatible with both the platforms.
Native Features
Navtive features can be used with Ionic or Hybrid app from cordova plugins available on github which are open source too but not tested well for production use.
Our Experience and final verdict
Ionic is good ! for web developers and designers who don’t want to go deep into complex programming and logics and not have more than 10 pages of design.
It sucks in long term and does not deliver value to customer for medium and big production apps.
When it comes to security and final app size, it lacks in many aspects, like for simple calendar app it takes more than 3.5 mb space on phone (as compared to native app which took less than 1mb)
UI and UX is good for visual but interaction with components kills the user experience.
You can make following types of apps using ionic like food app, travel guide, showcase app, event app, simple to-do list app, reminder app, near by app (simple location based) and so on. which requires simple business logic and most of the contents fetch from network.
If you want to experience the real app made purly with Ionic and Cordova you can refer below apps
Airdum : Android
Smart Muster : Android and iOS
