Hybrid Apps and Rapid Development? What’s in Store for 2016?

The one thing we can be sure of for Enterprise Mobile Apps for 2016 is that we will need them in a big way. What’s not as certain is exactly how developers are going to approach the standards of that development. We’re approaching an age where the possibility of of virtual desktops that access the same information across all devices, whether it’s the users PC or smartphone, is on the horizon and enterprise mobile apps are what is going to make this happen, or at least be the first step into making this happen.

This is where Hybrid Mobile Apps and rapid app development come in. According to Gartner, more than half the apps developed in 2016 will be hybrid mobile apps with 60 percent of enterprise apps being hybrid. Gartner says that the trade off of the freedom of native vs the convenience of cross platform implementation is well worth in and I agree. Especially when it comes to enterprise apps, we’re not looking for the coolest of flashiest apps, we’re looking to create secure, functioning apps that aren’t going to cost and arm and a leg.

Hybrid apps have come a long way. Just two years ago they paled in comparison to native apps because they were viewed as being poorly designed and weren’t as usable or fast as native apps. The main reason why I think hybrid apps are set for a massive comeback in 2016 is using HTML5 to develop these apps make them easy to implement  cross platform and they tend to not cost as much as native apps.

Having an app that is cross platform ready is huge, especially in enterprise mobility where people are going to be bringing their own devices. You don’t have to shut people down by being iPhone or Android specific because building another native app is expensive. While the freedom is a bit less than going native, you can expect that to be more than compensated for in 2016 as the technology continues to grow.

With these hybrid apps will come growing popularity of rapid development and low code mobile app development platforms. Many mobile app development platforms are making themselves available in low code meaning that it does not take as much time or skill to create these apps. This will save money on both the time it will take to develop these apps and the actual skill that goes into creating them. It’s no longer necessary to hire a team to create these apps.