WKWebView for Hybrid Apps in iOS 8

With the release of iOS 8, Apple has brought so many changes in the Framework existing classes and have introduced new classes.

For Hybrid App development we introduced UIWebView, Which is used for displaying the Web content. 

However, with the release of iOS Apple has introduced a new class called WKWebView. which is derived from UIView here is the inheritance chain for WKWebView.

NSObject
|
UIResponder
|
UIView
|
WKWebView

WKWebView is also derived from UIView similar to UIWebView, So what are the difference in both.

Performance

Hybrid App Development Part 1

So, in the previous blog Introduction to hybrid app development we learn about what is hybrid app. Today, we will learn more about hybrid app.

1. Hybrid App Architecture : Hybrid App Development Part 1
2. Development tools           : Hybrid App Development Part 2
3. Debugging techniques      : Hybrid App Development Part 3
4. Building Hybrid App        : Hybrid App Development Part 4
1. UI Development     : Part 4.1
2. Fetching Data and Angular Caching : Part 4.2
5. Testing the App                : Hybrid App Development Part 5
6. Deployment of App          : Hybrid App Development Part 6

We will talk about Architecture of Hybrid Mobile Application. We will discuss each of the component in detail. 

So first question that came to my mind when I think of Hybrid App Development is that what is it that enables this?

Answer to this Question is 

Web vs Native vs Hybrid Applications

In my previous blog Introduction to Hybrid Application development, we talk about different technologies which we will can use to build a Hybrid Application development.

However, before going into deep with Hybrid Application Development I was thinking to do a comparison between Web vs Native vs Hybrid Mobile applications.

Web vs Native vs Hybrid Mobile Applications

What I think about these different techniques for Mobile Application Development is that we should go with Hybrid Mobile Application development as over the past couple of years the Tools which are being used for Hybrid App development are matured and have been popular enough.

I didn't want to mention this but if you are a mobile app developer than you can see that the jobs in the IBMWorklight are more than any other Tool being used for Hybrid Mobile Application Development. If you would ask me what I am favoring the Hybrid App development is because

1. Single CodeBase for all the platforms. You need to maintain only one code for different platforms like iOS, Android and Windows.
2. Development is faster. As we are using the existing Web application development technologies like JavaScript, HTML and CSS with Apache Cordova
3. Deployment as Native apps by wrapping the web app using native framework.
4. IBM Worklight provide Single Notification server which can be used to deliver notifications to all the different platforms.
5. Integration with native features is very easy.
6. Offline databases can be used to store data when network is not available which huge advantage for offline support is.
7. There is huge repository of Cordova Plugins which can be integrated easily.

I would like to know your opinion on this before I start the Hybrid application development series and please suggest if there is anything specific you want me to include in the series.

Introduction to Hybrid App Development

History

With the Origin of mobile operating systems like iOS, Andriod, Windows and Others in the market. There are variety of devices in with different form factors and different hardware specifications. With the evolution of the Mobile Operating System, Mobile Devices hardware has evolved a lot. We will not deep into hardware development but yes we will talk more about the Software part.

So, What are the ways we can develop a Mobile Application?

1. Using xCode with Swift, Objective - C and using their UI Libraries we can build Apps for iOS. you can go to Apple Developer Site to know more about it.
2. Android Application development using Java. Getting Started with Android.
3. Windows phone application development using .Net Framework and C#. Windows phone App Development getting started.

As Listed above if you need to build an App for multiple devices you would think I would need to learn all these technologies and believe me I have not listed all the Technologies which are used, I have just mentioned the programming languages.

So now you can understand what could be the problem with this. Anyway, I will mention it explicitly, Now I want to develop an App for all 3 Operating Systems. I have to develop it in 3 different plateforms to support 3 different mobile operating systems. Which I think would be huge effort for Developers and Enterprise Softwares. This problem leads to the evolution of Hybrid Mobile Application development with mainly involve development with PhoneGap (Currently known as Cordova).

Swift – All you need to know – Part 1

As we are studying the Swift programming language for past couple of months. While studying the language I cam across many features of the programming. So I thought to compile all those features with some brief introduction so that if some one just want to have a sneak peak at the features he/she can just go though this blog.

So this is the part -1 of the series I am thinking to write. Hope to complete it soon and cover the features in its entirety.

Objective C has been the core programming language for Apple software Development. It has been there for 20 years and serving us well. As per Apple they have worked for 4 years to design Swift Programming Language.

So what is it that they wanted to achieve with Swift? As per Apple during the Swift Programming language intro in WWDC 2014 they want “Objective C without the baggage of C”.

Swift is Fast, Safe, Modern and Interactive programming language. Here are the few key points of Swift programming language:

•       Adapts safe programming patterns by using the Type Inference and Generics.

•       It adopts the readability of Objective-C’s named parameters and the power of Objective-C’s dynamic Object Model.

•       Provides seamless access to the existing Cocoa Framework and Objective-c code.

•        Develop apps for iOS and Mac OS both.

You might have heard about the playgrounds the new feature in XCode 6 where you can use Swift language and see the output of the programming as you finish typing the code. We can discuss Playground and its features in other blog. Today we will talk about what all features Swift Programming language has come up with and will have brief introduction about each feature for you to kick start the language.