Mobile Development Strategies Introduction

As a foundation to successfully implement a solid modern mobile strategy, we'll begin our dive into mobile strategy by first discussing today's various mobile development options:

1. Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) and Responsive Web
2. Cross Platform Development
3. Hybrid Development
4. Native Development
5. Wearables
6. Compare today's mobile apps with yesteryear's
7. 3rd Party development considerations

The discussions around each topic will be geared towards technical managers who may, or may not be familiar with the various mobile development options and/or deeper technical nuances regarding the strengths and weakness of each.  

However, while we will certainly be dealing with technical details, the posts here will not be specifically "how to" develop mobile, nor will the posts be specifically for developers and "how to" code.  That said, there will be plenty for developers and engineers here as well.

Instead, what we'll be more deeply diving into are areas to support technical and business leadership to understand the more technical details that each development paradigm offers an organization's overall mobile strategy to support the business.   

The following is an overview of the topics we'll be exploring:

Progressive Web Apps (PWAs):

First, we'll take a look into this hyper critical mobile option which is often overlooked by many decision makers when considering a complete mobile solution.  We'll look at the benefits and drawbacks of a PWA and clarify its strengths and weaknesses compared to Responsive Web and native app solutions. Generally, the awesome, bad, and ugly of them.

Cross Platform Development:

This is quite possibly the discussion which is most likely to elicit the most heated and impassioned conversations amongst both technical leaders as well as developers.  We've all heard it for decades now - "write once, run everywhere!"  We will dive into the realities of this topic on a very deep level, so if you as a business leader agree or disagree with this methodology, you'll be armed with the needed information to make the best decision to determine if this path is for your organization or not. 

Hybrid Development:

This next area is a subject which I believe is often either confused with cross-platform development or simply used interchangeably.   In fact, there may be some readers who admittedly argue that these two are indeed interchangeable.  IMHO, this is a point I disagree with and will give my two cents regarding this difference, because I think it's at least important to understand an alternative perspective.  Why would someone choose this development paradigm over cross platform or others? There are reasons, some technical - some not.. We will dive into all of them here.

Native Mobile Development:

At this point, with a more solid understanding of the various mobile development alternatives and each of their pros and cons laid out, we'll dive into our discussion of native mobile app development.

Often, the pitfalls discussed around native development tend to revolve around development time, cost, and learning curves.  What we'll look at here is the true long and short term impact of native development on these areas of your business.

Many times - often times - native is not the needed route...  Other times, it is simply the must take route and is absolutely the "best" - or "only" option!  We will explore this paradigm's technical team and business impacts in detail.

Wearables Development:

Here we take a look at an area of mobile development which is very much in flux and its potential impact on your organization's mobile strategy.  We will discuss this somewhat "newer" area of mobile which is going to continue to play a significant and growing role in our acceptance of integrated technologies and how we interact with our environment.

While we often see these mobile components as "extensions" of a particular mobile app - if you're looking to the future of having a current mobile strategy which continues to take your organization into the coming years - then wearables will most likely need to be a significant part of that mobile strategy. 

We will dive into this so your business does not miss out on this incredible opportunity.

Look into Future Architectures: 

At this point, with the development posts behind us, we will start our deeper journey into the larger enterprise and future looking solutions.  We'll dive into some of the differences between today's mobile apps and those of only a few years ago.  We'll explore overall apps' functionality and architectures which the enterprise has been developing in recent years as well as consumer expectations.  Further, we'll look at how that is evolving today!

Additionally, we'll look at realistic strategies for 3rd party support and development options and discuss some of the subtle land-minds to be aware of so they don't derail your organization's customer relations and keep you able to support huge volumes of integrations. 

I'm looking forward to writing the future post and hearing from you and any questions you may have.  

Let's dive in....