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by TylerJay 4127 days ago
I think what makes it "native" or not is how the app is rendered. You can basically take any web application and wrap it into an app, but it displays in a "web view" whereas a "native" app uses the built-in display components of the OS. For example, the little slider gray/green icon instead of radio buttons on iOS. Also, native apps have access to certain device APIs like the camera while non-native apps don't (at least I don't think so).
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IgorPartola 4127 days ago
Cordova, which uses HTML in a WebView paradigm, lets you wrap native API's as plugins, so you can access them from JavaScript. You can access most (all?) native functionality from within JS using either Corfova-supplied or third party plugins. Honestly, Cordova + Ionic/Angular has been a great experience so far. Very few problems and a super quick time to market. I can't imagine iterating as quickly for two platforms at once (three if you care about Windows Mobile).
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RussianCow 4127 days ago
Yes, but you don't get a native UI with hybrid solutions like Cordova. Also, in order to use native APIs, you have to create special wrappers for them, whereas in NativeScript, it looks like you can call the APIs directly. (How this affects performance, I don't know.)
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IgorPartola 4127 days ago
How does calling API's directly work with different platforms using different names, calling conventions, etc.? I like that with Cordova someone already did the work of normalizing the native calls.

Agreed about the lack of native UI. Things like Ionic help, but it is not 100% perfect by any means.

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