Introduction
In the world we live in, several applications are introduced into the tech and software industry daily. There is an app for everything right now and more upgrades, updates, and versions are still rolling out, making the app development niche quite competitive. On the other scene, have you sat down and wondered how these launched apps successfully work on Android and iOS platforms? We will look at that and more in this article. Meanwhile, you can go through my Hashnode profile and read my previous article on the relationship between flutter and dart and how they work together, this will make you understand how the program(Dart) and the flutter framework work in building applications that are finally launched as Android or iOS. That aside, let's delve into how native applications work on Android and iOS platforms.
What is Native App Development
Native app development is building a mobile application that is tailored and dedicated to a specified platform like iOS, or Android. Because they are built specifically for the operating system, they provide higher user engagement than hybrid apps. Native mobile apps generally perform and look better than their web-based counterparts and have access to devise hardware and capabilities, such as sensors and cameras, that are not available via a mobile browser interface alone. Native mobile apps, unlike websites or web applications, do not operate in the browser. They must be downloaded from platform-specific app stores like Apple's App Store and Google Play. Each program can be accessed by tapping its icon on your device's screen after installation. However, native applications are more complicated to create than mobile websites. You may use the native capabilities of mobile operating systems to create a richer user experience and implement app features. In other words, native applications are software explicitly created for a single platform. Programming languages and tools designed for a single platform are used to create the application. You can build an Android app in Java or Kotlin while creating an iOS app in Swift and Objective-C but Google has made it easier with the advent of its cross-platform framework, Flutter (details of this popular framework can be found from the link in the introduction part of this article).
Examples of the best native apps
Native applications run on a specific operating system. Most commonly, these are iOS or Android apps.
iOS App Development
The iOS operating system powers all Apple devices, including iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. It comes with a sleek design, intuitive interface, and improved security features. It’s okay to say this operating system is easy to use, cost-effective and has a high return on investment. Tinder, alongside other apps, is a classic example of a native application, and it was designed specifically for iOS and then ported to Android. It looks completely different on iOS than it does on Android.
Android App Development
Apart from offering an open-source operating system, Android offers something else to developers: millions and millions of users. According to Statista, The Google Play Store had over 111.3 billion downloads by the end of 2021, and that is the main reason why most of the best applications are created for Android first before converting to iOS.
Building a Native App for Android Using Java
1. Install Android Studio
Android Studio provides a complete IDE, including an advanced code editor and app templates. It also contains tools for development, debugging, testing, and performance that makes it faster and easier to develop apps. You can use Android Studio to test your apps with a large range of preconfigured emulators, or on your own mobile device. You can also build production apps and publish apps on the Google Play store.
2. Open Android Studio.
In the Welcome to Android Studio dialog, click Start a new Android Studio project.
Select Basic Activity (not the default). Click Next.
Give your application a name such as My First App
Make sure the language is set to Java
Leave the defaults for the other fields.
Click Finish
3. Get your screen set up
When your project first opens in Android Studio, there may be a lot of windows and panes open. To make it easier to get to know Android Studio, here are some suggestions on how to customize the layout.
If there's a Gradle window open on the right side, click on the minimize button (—) in the upper right corner to hide.
Explore the project structure and layout.
4. Create a virtual device (emulator)
In this task, you will use the Android Virtual Device (AVD) manager to create a virtual device (or emulator) that simulates the configuration for a particular type of Android device.
The first step is to create a configuration that describes the virtual device.
In Android Studio, select Tools > AVD Manager, or click the AVD Manager icon in the toolbar.
Click +Create Virtual Device. (If you have created a virtual device before, the window shows all of your existing devices and the +Create Virtual Device button is at the bottom.)
The Select Hardware window shows a list of pre-configured hardware device definitions.
Choose a device definition, such as Pixel 2, and click Next.
In the System Image dialog, from the Recommended tab, choose the latest release.
If a Download link is visible next to the latest release, it is not installed yet, and you need to download it first. If necessary, click the link to start the download, and click Next when it's done.
This may take a while depending on your connection speed.
In the next dialog box, accept the defaults, and click Finish.
The AVD Manager now shows the virtual device you added.
If the Your Virtual Devices AVD Manager window is still open, go ahead and close it.
5. Run your app on your new emulator
In Android Studio, select Run > Run ‘app' or click the Run icon in the toolbar.
The icon will change when your app is already running.
In Run > Select Device, under Available devices, select the virtual device that you just configured. This menu also appears in the toolbar.
The emulator starts and boots just like a physical device. Depending on the speed of your computer, this may take a while. You can look in the small horizontal status bar at the very bottom of Android Studio for messages to see the progress.
6. Run your app on a device
What you need:
An Android device such as a phone or tablet.
A data cable to connect your Android device to your computer via the USB port.
If you are using a Linux or Windows OS, you may need to perform additional steps to run your app on a hardware device.
To let Android Studio communicate with your device, you must turn on USB Debugging on your Android device.
On Android 4.2 and higher, the Developer options screen is hidden by default. To show Developer options and enable USB Debugging:
On your device, open Settings > About phone and tap Build number seven times.
Return to the previous screen (Settings). Developer options appears at the bottom of the list.
Tap Developer options.
Enable USB Debugging.
Building a Native App for iOS Using Objective-C
iOS applications are typically developed in a programming language called Objective-C and supported by a support library called Cocoa Touch. While developing iOS applications, most of your work will be done in an application called Xcode. Xcode 4, the latest version of the IDE, has Interface Builder (for creating the user interface) built directly into it. Xcode 4 enables you to create, manage, deploy, and debug your applications throughout the entire software development life-cycle. Objective-C extends C by providing object-oriented features. The object-oriented programming model is based on sending messages to objects, which is different from the model used by C++ and Java, which call methods directly on an object. This difference is subtle but is also one of the defining features that enables many of Objective-C’s features that are typically more at home in a dynamic language such as Ruby or Python.
Summary
Native development is the way to go if you want to build a high-performance app, which will work on a given platform. It may be more costly than developing a hybrid or cross-platform application, but in the long term, it will be worth it.