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Native app or is it native?

3 pointsby aabbcc1241almost 4 years ago
Occasionally seen people talk about native app when they actually describing web based hybrid app (capacitor &#x2F; cordova) or abstracted UI (react native &#x2F; flutter).<p>Should we really call them native app? Otherwise how do we distinct them from the traditional java &#x2F; swift &#x2F; objective-c &#x2F; kotlin app?<p>My concern is not about the programming languages but the added layer of abstraction.

3 comments

sandrusoalmost 4 years ago
In my world native = using platform apis to deliver experience. That means gui, networking, background processes, graphics, etc.
foobarbaz33almost 4 years ago
It&#x27;s a gray area and depends on your definition of &quot;native&quot;. For example, a Java program is certainly not native by most people&#x27;s idea of &quot;native&quot;. But the official API&#x27;s and GUI interfaces of Android&#x2F;Linux are based around Java, so it&#x27;s native in relation to the official APIs.<p>Someone making a a high FPS video game for Android&#x2F;Linux might disagree that a Java app is native to that platform.
Jeremy1026almost 4 years ago
I say no. To me a native app is more than just an icon on the home screen.