Mobile app types

Public versus private apps

Public apps are apps that are released to public app stores, such as iTunes App Store for iOS and Google Play for Android. Private apps are apps that are developed specifically for enterprises and not released publicly. Private apps are deployed to employees within an organization and are not available in public stores. Enterprises or vendors develop these apps for enterprise-specific uses. Private apps are also known as enterprise apps.

Native versus hybrid apps

Native apps are developed specifically for a mobile OS platform that supports programming languages such as Swift and Objective-C for iOS and Java™ for Android. The app is developed by the platform guidelines for app development, and uses the APIs that the OS offers. The app provides easy access to built-in device capabilities such as access to the camera, Bluetooth, and GPS. Native apps perform faster, provide a consistent look and feel, and offer better security. However, native apps take longer to develop, and need to be developed for each platform.

Hybrid apps are web apps that are developed with HTML5 and JavaScript. These apps are websites that are bundled to behave like a native app. Hybrid apps run on both iOS and Android, and all app data is provided by application servers. These apps make Web Service API calls to fetch the data. Hybrid apps use app development platforms such as IBM® Worklight, Cordova, Angular, or Ionic. The app development platforms provide the native wrapper to these apps. Hybrid apps perform slower because data is loaded across the internet by application servers.