A Kickstarter Guide To Understanding Ionic App Development

If you are here, we believe you are an entrepreneur, solopreneur, a tech enthusiast or a project manager who is exploring ideal hybrid mobile application development solutions and frameworks. Over the last few years, hybrid mobile application development has been increasingly on the rise thanks to the convenience and features it offers to users and developers respectively.

As screen sizes and consumer behaviors become more fluid, developers have to come out of their rigid development frameworks and deliver what is expected in the market. That's why we as an Ionic app development company felt the need to shed light on one of the most popular hybrid mobile application development frameworks out there – Ionic.

This article is ideal for anyone who is looking to develop and launch a solid and scalable app in the market today.

So, let's get started. But before we actually do with understanding the Ionic application development framework, let's quickly understand what hybrid app development is and what Ionic is as well.

What Is Hybrid App Development?

Every mobile app development company has to make two crucial decisions –

• On the type of app is it going to develop and roll out
• And on the ideal framework it should deploy to get a solid app for their business idea

As far as the first factor is concerned, there are three types of apps a business can choose to create – a native app, a mobile web solution and a hybrid app.

In one of our previous posts, we extensively explored what native and mobile web apps are. We recommend you check that out for comprehensive insights. However, for the uninitiated, a native app is specifically designed for a particular operating system such as Android or iOS. A native app is downloaded to a phone and the app makes use of the device's features, specs and capabilities to deliver performance. For instance, Facebook app that you download from an app store is a native app.

Web solutions, on the other hand, are websites that look and perform like apps. They need not be downloaded or installed. They can be simply accessed like websites with a stable internet connection.

While these two were polarisingly apart, there was the need for an element that could combine the functionalities of both and deliver something substantial to users. That's how hybrid mobile application development arrived. A hybrid mobile app is developed using web tech like JavaScript, CSS and HTML and runs out of a user's device. These apps are contained in a shell that makes use of the device's browser engine (let's not confuse this with browsers) for the purpose of rendering web pages locally. To enable the app to access device's features such as camera, gyroscope, accelerometer and more, hybrid apps deploy a web-to-native abstract layer.

Why Should You Prefer Hybrid App Development Framework?

There are tons of benefits to launching a hybrid app and that starts with the fact that a hybrid app can run across all devices and platforms. So, regardless of whether your consumers use Android or iOS phones, your app could seamlessly work on their devices. Apart from this fundamental benefit, hybrid apps offer the following business advantages:

• They offer superior performance.
• Their operating speed is impeccable.
• They are comparatively faster to develop and deploy by businesses.
• They offer an experience that is very close to what native apps offer to users.
• Hybrid apps are extremely cost effective.

Examples of Hybrid Apps

• Instagram
• Gmail
• Evernote
• Twitter
• Uber and more

An Introduction To Ionic App Development

When it comes to hybrid mobile application development, Ionic is unparalleled. Every single Ionic Framework Application Development Company out there works on this development framework for all their hybrid app development projects and the results are extremely beneficial.

To give you some insights on what Ionic is, it is a development framework that allows companies to develop apps for Windows, iOS and Android devices. By deploying languages such as TypeScript, JavaScript, HTML, CSS and Angular, onic App Development Services nic allows developers to use the same code base to create an app for all platforms. So, Ionic is also a cross-platform application development framework.

Some Interesting Stats And Facts On Ionic

• Ionic is a free and open source development framework.
• It was actually launched in the year 2013.
• There are around 5 million apps developed on Ionic.

Standout Features That Every Ionic App Development Company Loves

Ionic has a major market share as one of the leading hybrid mobile application development frameworks out there. With a strong developer community and support, Ionic is a global phenomenon and a crowd favorite. So much for the hype, what features does Ionic offer in the first place?

Let's find out.

Truly Cross-platform

Firstly, Ionic is the only tool you will need to develop apps for all platforms and devices without making any major changes to your core code.

Ease Of Development

Ionic, by default, segments JavaScript and CSS parts that enable developers to seamlessly create mobile apps.

Integration For Advanced Features

With Ionic, developers can also integrate the app's functionality to several device peripherals and components with the use of plugins. This adds more power to your app and actually makes it more functional like a native app.

Apart from plugins, developers can also integrate several third-party tools with their Ionic projects and add additional capabilities to their app.

Captivating UI

Ionic offers tons of themes and designs that makes developing the user interface a seamless task.

Your app is also made future-proof with Ionic. You could make any changes instantly, update your app, scale it up and down and do more with your code and Ionic would take care of everything hassle free. Besides, there are also myriads of ready-to-deploy elements and widgets that can be added for functionality and aesthetics. This further bridges the gap between native and web apps.

Built For Interactivity

Businesses that are looking to stand out in the cluttered market of mobile applications can do so by approaching an Ionic app development company. Apps built on Ionic offer interactivity and engagement, both of which are crucial for social media and online presence.

Convenient Testing

Testing is never a concern with Ionic. There are two modules developers can make use of – Ionic CLI to test web components and Angular CLI to test all previous versions. This allows developers to seamlessly see if their apps are working across platforms and devices.

Documentation And Learning Curve

If you are not an Ionic mobile app development company, you could easily get started with Ionic app development because the documentation provided by the framework is airtight and impeccable. From insights on configuration and installation to tweaks and modifications, developers can find every single detail they are looking for on building hybrid apps with Ionic.

Apart from this, what makes Ionic a developer's companion is the fact that it offers a minimal learning curve. This means any new developer assigned to an Ionic project can quickly get a grasp of the framework and start working on development.

Support And Assistance

There are millions of Ionic developers out there working on improving the framework for performance and functionality as you read. The best part is that the community is only growing by the day. So, the concerns you are facing are already resolved by members in the community, allowing you to fix errors and continue with the development.

Are There Any Downsides To Ionic App Development

As tech enthusiasts, ionic app development cost depends on many factors including size of projects, features, app categories, etc. And, one thing we should acknowledge is that no technology, concept, tool or framework is 100% efficient. Because our requirements are diverse and infinite, there might be some shortcomings in every tool or framework you could pick up. Ionic is no exception either. There are a few downsides to Ionic such as the absence of the Hot Reloading feature. With this absence, the changes made to the code are not instantly visible to developers.

Besides, it also offers some minor inconveniences in rendering images fast and in terms of the application size.

Final Thoughts

These negligible inconveniences aside, Ionic is as solid as it gets. While we took an objective approach to breaking down the framework, chances are that you might not even encounter these glitches in your development process.

So, for your next hybrid app development project, we recommend you choose Ionic. And if you feel you need an expert to take care of the development process, approach one of an ideal ionic app development companies like ours.

We have Ionic veterans in our team that can turn your business idea into an app that can run on all machines. All you have to do is get in touch with us and discuss.

Reach out to us today.