Reasons You Should Build an iOS App Natively

These days, it’s imperative that your business has a mobile presence. Without it, you’re missing out on almost 20% of your potential traffic. Instead of going for HTML5, offering your customers the opportunity to download your company app through Apple’s ecosystem is a great way to leverage this traffic.

Difference Between HTML5 and Native Apps

First things first, let’s quickly recap the concept of what sets a native app apart from HTML5 applications. Native apps are device-specific, such as for Android or iOS (Apple). This means that the program has been specifically tailored to work with a given operating system, as well as a smartphone’s unique features (such as the GPS and camera).

HTML5, on the other hand, is a web-based programme that (theoretically) works on any given smartphone or tablet via the device web browser. Proponents of this method champion the fact that you only need to code something once and it works on absolutely everything. However, it’s not always all it’s cracked up to be.

iOS Apps Perform

When it comes to sheer revenue figures, it’s clear that an iOS app performs very well on average. This is due to the fact that Apple iOS users are much more willing to whip out their credit cards. Over 400 million accounts are tied to active credit cards – just a small slice of this market can be very lucrative indeed.

HTML5, on the other hand, offers no marketplace to offer your app. It has no option to monazite it as a standalone product. If your company can offer a service through an app, then it’s always preferable to be able to sell that service packaged within a native App that can be sold at a small fee (even if you’re not doing so yet).

In addition to the tendency to be willing to pay for apps, Apple customers are also happy to spend on in-app purchases as well. So if you’re selling something online, it’s a good idea to offer users a solution that is completely tailored to their environment. Even the slightest alterations can mean the difference between a successful selling machine and a worthless dud.

User Experience

When it comes down to it, not a single developer is going to deny the fact that native apps simply work better than their HTML5 counterparts. This is because the app can leverage the nuances of each operating system, delivering a customised and innovative solution.

Even Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg agrees that HTML5 just doesn’t cut the mustard just yet. In September 2012 he said:

“The biggest mistake we made as a company was betting too much on HTML5 as opposed to native. It just wasn’t ready.”

This goes to show that while HTML5 will save on production costs, it has the potential to severely hamper user experience. If your mobile offering is critical to your business, then it’s worth spending that little bit extra

HTML5 = Security Risk

Source code in HTML5 is much easier to access, which means that it can be hacked. Native apps, on the other hand, are encrypted to guarantee that cached data is always secure. When holding any sort of sensitive information, native apps are the safe bet.

While HTML5 (or similar) may one day be the superior choice, we don’t see it happening anytime soon. Browsers simply don’t give a standardised base from which to work on. It seems like other developers agree, as interest in HTML5 suffered a noticeable drop in Q4 2013.