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by lukehaas 3532 days ago
I think Cordova is increasing in relevance. Over the last couple of years mobile devices have reached a level of performance that makes hybrid apps feel native. When you combine Cordova with Ionic you can create write-once apps that deploy to any device and have a native look and feel.
2 comments
danudey 3532 days ago
Not to dispute your assertion, but I've been hearing that PhoneGap/Cordova has 'felt native' for as long as it's been around, and that's never been true. Has it finally changed, and is it really worth it compared to e.g. writing an app in React instead?
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placebo 3532 days ago
You might want to check out Framework 7 (http://framework7.io/). Discovered it only a few months ago and it's the best work I've seen so far to achieve a native look when using Cordova
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ryanworl 3532 days ago
It depends on your goals. If you're doing relatively basic things, a hybrid app can feel indistinguishable from a native app on iOS. Android is tough because the hardware varies so much. Displaying text fields, scrolling tables, images, etc. will work well and feel native on iOS and on higher-powered Android devices. Going outside of those lines into a lot of animation and that kind of thing is slower and will not feel native anymore.

I actively recommended against hybrid apps for years to people who hired me, but for the last year or so I would have felt safe recommending it with the caveats above. My experience is mostly with Ionic, which is a layer on top of Cordova, but I imagine most of these frameworks are the same.

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aikah 3532 days ago
> When you combine Cordova with Ionic you can create write-once apps that deploy to any device and have a native look and feel.

Ionic hardly feels "native", especially since it is based on AngularJs which is dog slow to begin with. Stop overselling Ionic.

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terrortrain 3532 days ago
It feels fairly native actually, there are cases where you can tell, but given the benefits, it's usually worth it.

The ionic team did a great job of optimizing css, and managing routes/screen animations to follow the expectations on different platforms.

Angular is slow, but it's not that slow. It's fine for most apps. Stop underselling ionic.

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