When going Native is simply too costly

As a small start-up in the privacy and identity space we are coming to the realisation that developing a native mobile app on multiple platforms is not very scalable and costs us a significant amount of resources and money. Money and resources otherwise spent on providing better and more helpful features to our users; which is, after all, why we are doing what we are doing.

Furthermore, as we are finding our feet, we realise that we may have to be able to quickly port the apps to new promising platforms – as well as to partner with other open organisations. Such platforms may include Ubuntu & Firefox OS. There’s also the case of reusing functionality for a browser plugin – and even on our website.

We are therefore currently exploring a proof of concept using PhoneGap / Apache Cordova – initially, in order to get the app to Android. We’re exploring the native Hybrid approach whereby the platform integration features (URL schemes, scanning, QS APIs, social platform integration for some services etc.) are written natively and the UI and common functionality is written in JavaScript/HTML5/CSS.

The native functionality is exposed on each PhoneGap platform as a platform-agnostic set of APIs. Future PhoneGap support for new features could see us removing native functionality and instead replacing with PhoneGap functionality.

We hope to share our experiences with you in the near future.