Mobile App Development Toronto

A hybrid mobile app is an app developed using a mobile platform such as Apache Cordova.

Cordova of which there are many iterations (most famously Adobe’s PhoneGap) allowed web developers to build ‘native’ installable mobile applications that could access native API’s such as the device gallery, camera and GPS.

Hybrid apps are developed using web coding languages such as JavaScript, HTML5 and CSS; hybrid mobile apps run in a web view and are ‘wrapped’ in a native app container. The apps are downloadable from app stores such as Apple App Store and Google Play Store and are installed natively on the mobile phone however they are not truly native and have a slower max frame rate somewhat limiting the performance (on older devices especially).

We built several hybrid apps pre 2015 even for big companies such as Dulux and Schweppes however these days we do not recommend hybrid apps as there is much better ways to build a single mobile app that runs on both iOS and Android; cross-platform, see more about cross-platform mobile app development in our next Q!

A cross-platform app is a native app developed using React Native or other mobile app development platform that allows app developers to code in a single code base using web development coding languages (JS/HTML/CSS) yet unlike hybrid apps they are compiled down to fully NATIVE code! i.e. instead of running in a web view like hybrid apps React Native (and Flutter) apps are coded once (sometimes with some slight variations for platform specific UX) and when built in XCode / Android Studio compile to equivalent native code and UI components for each platform (i.e. Swift, Obj-C, Java) and when run on a mobile device operate and function the same as a natively coded application.

React Native is almost always the way to go in this day and age with enterprise, business or startup apps; unless you are building a game, have some super over the top high intensity requirements or have massive budgets and a very, very big team!

A wide variety of tools are required to build mobile apps. We use React Native, XCode, Android Studio, Swift, Objective-C and Java for the most part; almost all of our apps also have a back-end API hosted in the cloud on AWS and use a variety of native API’s for accessing information on the mobile device such as camera, gallery, GPS, contacts list and more!

Depending on the complexity of the app, design and development can take ~3-6 months on average but can also take up to a year if your mobile application is really complex! Alot of the apps we build are full platforms so also have at least an API and sometimes also a web app.

Once development is completed and the app is tested it takes up to a week max for app store review in most cases and a day or two for future app updates to the app stores after the first submission. On average you can expect 2-3 days.

We have built many different kinds of mobile apps across lots of industry sectors for well over a decade now; these include mobile applications for healthcare, enterprise and business apps (that usually also have a web app and 3rd-party API integrations such as Salesforce, Xero, SAP) and also for several startups such as a social media app integrated with Facebook and Instagram API’s.

Alot of the apps we have developed have also been integrated with 3rd-party SDK’s and bluetooth devices such as medical devices, lazer measuring devices and even one that had weigh scales to weigh cows!

We’ve also designed and built several apps/startups of our own from the ground up in the healthtech space, HRtech and travel!