Native apps

[Terry]

Hi, I'm just trying to get a handle on what the Telerik Platform can do. If there is a white paper or blog post somewhere that will answer my questions, please give me a link. I haven't been able to find detailed explanations.

Am I right in understanding that I can create native mobile apps for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone?

What languages are used to create the native apps?

Everything can be done from a Windows machine? I ask because developing iOS with something like Xamarin still requires a Mac.

Thanks
Terry

[luis]

Hi Terry,

You can't build native apps with telerik platform, but you can build hybrid apps through cordova/phonegap; plus, you don't need a mac.

Luis

[Terry]

I'm confused then.  If I go to Telerik's home page at http://www.telerik.com I see the following text:

Mobile App Development
Telerik Platform
Web, hybrid and native mobile development supported by an end-to-end mobile platform

If I go to Telerik's  Telerik Platform home page at http://www.telerik.com/platform I see the following text:

The Telerik Platform
The only modular platform that combines a rich set of UI tools with powerful cloud services to develop web, hybrid and native apps

It sure seems like Telerik is saying you can use the Telerik Platform to develop native apps.

So if you can't develop native apps with the Telerik Platform what is Telerik talking about when they mention native apps in the same context as developing hybrid apps?

Thanks
Terry

[luis]

Because they act like native apps. They have native events, like accessing storage, the camera, etc, but the core of your app is a web project. That's why you can deploy a cross-platform app writting your code once. 

[Terry]

You are describing a hybrid app. Telerik is saying they support hybrid and native app development with the Telerik Platform.

From a blog post on Telerik's site titled "What is a Hybrid Mobile App?"

http://blogs.telerik.com/appbuilder/posts/12-06-14/what-is-a-hybrid-mobile-app-

Native apps are built for a specific platform with the platform SDK, tools and languages, typically provided by the platform vendor (e.g. xCode/Objective-C for iOS, Eclipse/Java for Android, Visual Studio/C# for Windows Phone).

Mobile Web apps are server-side apps, built with any server-side technology (PHP, Node.js, ASP.NET) that render HTML that has been styled so that it renders well on a device form factor.

Hybrid apps, like native apps, run on the device, and are written with web technologies (HTML5, CSS and JavaScript). Hybrid apps run inside a native container, and leverage the device’s browser engine (but not the browser) to render the HTML and process the JavaScript locally. A web-to-native abstraction layer enables access to device capabilities that are not accessible in Mobile Web applications, such as the accelerometer, camera and local storage.

[Iva Koevska]

Hi all,

Luis, thank you for your active participation in the discussion. You are only partially right - AppBuilder is the tool that provides for hybrid development only. However, the Telerik Platform does provide the necessary tooling for native development. All its services (except for AppBuilder) provide native SDKs and there is a set of native UI controls for WP8, Android, and iOS.

Terry, thank you for your interest in native development with the Telerik Platform. Currently, it provides services and UI controls that can be used for native development with a setup and a third-party IDE of your choice. This, as you might be guessing, means that not everything can be done from a Windows machine. If you decide to go with native development, you will still need to adhere to required setups for native development for each platform - e.g. a Mac for iOS, Eclipse and the Android SDKs for Android, etc. But you will be able to use the Telerik Platform services, samples, and SDKs for native development.

This complexity is avoided by choosing hybrid over native development. With AppBuilder, for example, you can create, build, and publish an app that will run on WP8, Android, and iOS devices from any system - no strings attached, no system setup limitations. AppBuilder takes care of all the Mac-related tasks - again for hybrid development only.

I would be more than happy to answer more specific questions about native development for a particular device platform with the Telerik Platform. The reason I am not listing all available resources and relevant information for all supported platforms is that it might be a bit too tedious to read in one post. 

Thank you!

Regards,
Iva Koevska
Telerik

 

 

[Terry]

Thank you Luis and Iva for the information.

Terry