Programming the Mobile Web, 2nd Edition

Chapter 16. Native and Installed Web Apps

Mobile web solutions can run like native installed applications on any platform. This technique is present today in every vendor’s roadmap, and many devices are already compatible with some kind of solution for this.

The mobile community hasn’t settled on a single name for this kind of application yet; some platforms call them “web apps” and others “offline applications,” “JavaScript applications,” “hybrid applications,” “native web applications,” “HTML5 apps,” or simply “widgets.”

All that said, to simplify our discussion of this kind of application in this chapter, from here on out I will refer to them as web apps when they are not packaged and native web apps when they are (the power of the author).

Note

In Chapter 3, we discussed the “native versus web” battle and what it means for us.

We’ll define a mobile web app as an application entirely developed using web technologies (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) that is installed on the device’s Home screen or in the applications menu and that the user can use when offline as well as online. The usage of web technologies is invisible to the user, and the application can work just like any other software installed on the device.

One of the main features of a web app versus hybrid or native web apps is the hosted-based nature: web apps must be hosted on a web server, while native web apps or hybrids are packaged, signed, and distributed through an app store.

Web App Pros and Cons

Web apps are the future for ...