What is a mobile app?

The term “mobile application” refers to software . It is more precisely a program , which contains a file , which can be downloaded from a mobile phone or even from a tablet. Once installed, this program is executed by the operating system of the smartphone or tablet on which it is located.

What are the different development languages ​​for a mobile application?

As mentioned earlier, the file that makes up a mobile application is executed by the operating system of the device on which it is located. We then find two types of development language specific to mobile devices, namely:

• JAVA or Kotlin, for smartphones and for Android tablets, such as Samsung devices for example;
• And Objective C or Swift for IOS, in other words, for all Apple devices.

Note: It is possible to set up an application for both operating systems, Android and IOS . This is then referred to as a “hybrid application”.

What are the different types of mobile application?

There are three families of mobile applications: native applications or “Native Apps”, Web applications or “Web Apps” and, as mentioned above, hybrid applications or “Hybrid Apps”.

Natives Apps or native applications

At first, we therefore find the native applications. These are software that are exclusively created for a specific mobile platform . Their development is done via the software develop kit , or SDK, of the platform concerned. The name Natives Apps therefore comes from the fact that these applications are developed through the unique use of the “native” language, either JAVA for Android or Objective C for Apple.

Note: this type of application is downloaded directly from the download platform associated with the operating system. We then speak of an application store: Google Play, for Android devices or Apple Store for Apple devices.

Web Apps or web applications

We then find the web applications. This type of application corresponds to websites . These are set up to offer a fully optimized display for mobile phones . Unlike native applications, which require a prior download, Web Apps are accessible from a mobile browser. In general, these are developed using web technologies such as HTML5 or CSS3.

Hybrid Apps or Hybrid Applications

Finally, we find applications of the hybrid type . As mentioned above, these applications are accessible from all mobile platforms . Moreover, they are presented as a mix between Native Apps and Web Apps. Mainly developed from HTML5, they also use web languages ​​such as CSS or JavaScript.

In this way, unlike Native Apps , they are not dependent on a particular platform. On the other hand, unlike Web Apps, they have the possibility of accessing all the functions that are present on a mobile phone.