

Are JS Mobile Apps Worth It? - bspates

So a few years back I wrote a few simplistic mobile applications for android using the sdk. I was new to the programming world and was excited enough by novelty to power through the verbose nature of the library. In the two years since I last touched android I have been working as a full stack developer; mostly in JS. Today I attempted to dive back into android only to be jarred by the over-complexity of its sdk. Needing to instantiate four managers to get one piece of data was something I haven&#x27;t experienced in awhile, and it got me thinking. Has the performance of JS mobile apps(created with apache cordova or whatever) reached a tipping point where non graphic intensive apps are close to indistinguishable from native?
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untog
Performance is _less_ of an issue than it was, but it still exists (though the
great IOS8 news is that in-app webviews finally get Nitro[1]). The larger
problem, IMO, is UI. You simply cannot recreate native UI in a web view.

But there are some interesting frameworks out there that blend native UI
components with web views - it can work well, and is used more than people
often think (in Instagram, for example). As with anything, it's a tradeoff. If
you want to make cross-platform a priority, having your main views be web-
powered can save you a lot of time, even if they won't be _quite_ as good as
native ones. But I maintain the non-HN crowd will be unlikely to notice a
slight lack of polish - the standards in our echo chamber are artificially
high, IMO.

[1] [http://9to5mac.com/2014/06/03/ios-8-webkit-changes-
finally-a...](http://9to5mac.com/2014/06/03/ios-8-webkit-changes-finally-
allow-all-apps-to-have-the-same-performance-as-safari/)

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compedit
Definitely not. Most of the time when I encounter an obvious webpage disguised
as a native application, I feel deceived and underwhelmed.

Maybe a little over the top, but honestly it's true. Build a fast, responsive
mobile site and be honest about what you're producing. If you want the web and
its technologies to win, build and present with the web.

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abhinavgujjar
Like everything, It depends. If your app provides a clear utility and that is
the main reason for people to use it, then yes - A Js with some hybrid
framework should do.

However - If you're competing in a crowded set of apps, then going native is
the minimum you'd need to do for your app to stand out in the crowd.

