A Tale of Two Fashions: An Empirical Study on the Performance of Native Apps and Web Apps on Android

The burst of Web-based Restful services brings us a number of facilities in our life and work. We are used to take smartphones to access these Web services, like location-based services, weather search, mapping, social networking, et al. On smartphones, we have two options of service consumers, a.k.a, Native apps and Web apps. Despite the platform-independence, Web apps are claimed to provide the same features and comparable user experiences with native apps. However, one fact is that more and more people prefer native apps rather than Web apps. In this paper, we make an empirical study on characterizing the performance disparity of native apps and Web apps. Given the same functionalities provided by the same service providers, we explore the Restful Web services that are used by native apps and Web apps. With HTTP-level trace analysis, we demystify the workflows on how native apps and Web apps use Web services and summarize different service usage patterns from architectural style perspective. Then we characterize the performance differences between native apps and Web apps on realizing Restful Web services including GET, DELETE, PUT & POST, in terms of number of network connections, response time, and data drain, given the same functional features. Our observations reveal that Web apps do not always perform worse than native apps using Restful Web services under the same context. We further propose some implications to improve both native apps and Web apps on smartphones.

Growing use of the cell phones and tablets over the computer for humans’ daily life has increased the development of mobile apps. Different paradigms have been introduced to develop a mobile app. Up till now, the major paradigms have been introduced are native apps, hybrid apps, web app and the new trend namely progressive web app (PWA). Each methodology has its pros and cons. This paper discusses about native development issues and how web app aimed to solve these problems. The hybrid apps will be discussed as a solution of cross-platform development problem of native apps. In addition, problems of web apps and the gap between web app and native apps will be introduced. PWA is supposed to bridge the gap between native apps and web apps. The main technologies –service worker- will also be discussed.

The proposed system uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Deep Learning (DL) techniques to extract voice data and translate it to text during medical consultations. Iterative model was adopted in the design of the system and the user interfaces was implemented by using NLP techniques, especially speech recognition and natural language understanding. Deep learning algorithm shows a great ability to build clinical decision support systems by extracting various information for medical diagnosis and produce result is few seconds. The result form the system testing shows that the installation size of the Progressive Web App (104 KB) is 42 times smaller than the native Android app (4.37 MB). In terms of render-speeds, the PWA rendered different results. The native app will launch the Android activity after 1408 ms after app icon tap (launch), while the progressive web app launches the application in 230 ms. The advent of cross-platform application development frame-works have made it much easier to create applications for multiple platforms for mobile devices. In spite of reduced learning effort, usually lower costs, and a faster time-to-market cross-platform methods always do not prevail in most cases. Although there are normal exclusions – like graphic-intensive games, which should to be programmed with the native software development kits (SDKS), choice between native apps, cross-platform generated ones, and Web apps can remain delicate. Whereas many diverse efforts have been made with respect to how cross-platform development frameworks ought to work, no technology is deemed unequivocally superior than the others. But a cross-platform mobile app has got an edge over native app development. It also recommends that developers adopt this technology of mobile app development due to its huge gains.

App development is a steadily growing industry. Progressive web apps (PWAs) constitute a technology inspired by native and hybrid apps; they use web technologies to create web and mobile apps. Based on a service worker, a caching mechanism, and an app shell, PWAs aim to offer web apps with features and user interfaces similar to those of native apps. Furthermore, technological development has created a greater need for accessibility. An increasing number of websites, even government ones, are overlooking the need for equal access to new technologies among people with disabilities. This article presents, in a systematic review format, both PWAs and web accessibility and aims to evaluate PWAs’ effectiveness as regards the corresponding accessibility provided.

T he adoption of mobile smart devices by the general public is rapidly increasing. It has been estimated that more than 100 million subscribers in the United States now use smartphones (Bae et al., 2012). This represents an opportunity for deploying horticulture-related mobile applications, or ‘‘apps,’’ for research, teaching, and extension. What is an app? The name is an abbreviation for ‘‘application,’’ a piece of software that is specifically designed to run on a mobile device, such as a smartphone or tablet (Salz and Moranz, 2013). An app is typically downloaded and installed by the device owner. Such ‘‘native’’ apps run in conjunction with the device’s installed operating system (OS) and require an Internet connection only if a web-based service is necessary. Some examples of mobile OSs include Google’s (Mountain View, CA) Android OS, Apple’s (Cupertino, CA) iOS, and Microsoft’s (Redmond, WA) Windows Phone OS. Alternately, an app can simply be a webpage that is optimized for viewing on a smart device with access to the Internet; i.e., ‘‘web app.’’ Native apps are typically distributed via a third party, commonly known as an app store. Web-based apps are represented by icons on the device’s screen that direct the user to the webpage. Apps can be downloaded freely or are available for purchase. Some apps allow users to purchase ‘‘in-app’’ content to gain access to additional features. As the trend toward mobile learning and support grows, it is important for horticulture professionals to be aware of horticulture-related apps, and how these apps are developed, distributed, and installed. The overarching goal of this workshop is to provide an overview of the design, development, testing, and deployment of mobile apps with emphasis on horticulture-related functions. The first paper provides an overview of how apps are downloaded and installed on a mobile device. It describes how to search for apps with specific functions. Some examples of horticulture-related mobile apps will be presented. These include food safety, geographic information systems, image enhancement, hydroponics, insect scouting, turfgrass management, plant growth regulator calculations, landscape design, and plant and tree identification. It outlines how to find these apps and describes the general procedures involved in downloading and installing these apps. The remainder of the session will be devoted to the presentation of two related papers by a multidisciplinary team representing different institutions. This team has the unique and valuable experience of releasing two versions of a mobile app designed for horticultural professionals and the home horticulture market, respectively. The first paper will provide an overview of app development from conceptualization, to planning for programming and other costs, to user interface design using the team’s experience as a model. This presentation underscores the fact that app development is a dynamic process that requires detailed planning and close coordination among team members. The last paper will focus on testing, launching, and promoting an app. Proper testing and a well-planned promotional campaign are seen as key steps in releasing a properly functional app to the appropriate markets. The team’s real-world experience underscores the significance of the suggestion by Salz and Moranz (2013) to ‘‘build relationships, not just apps.’’ The papers from this workshop provide unique lessons in the development and deployment of horticulturerelated apps and help to provide guidance for others who are interested in developing apps to promote research, teaching, and extension.

The ever-increasing popularity of web APIs allows app developers to leverage a set of existing web APIs to achieve their sophisticated objectives. The heavily fragmented distribution of web APIs makes it challenging for an app developer to find appropriate and compatible web APIs. Currently, app developers usually have to manually discover candidate web APIs, verify their compatibility and select appropriate and compatible ones. This process is cumbersome and requires detailed knowledge of web APIs which is often too demanding. It has become a major obstacle to further and broader applications of web APIs. To address this issue, we first propose a web API correlation graph built on extensive data about the compatibility between web APIs. Then, we propose WAR ( <underline xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">W</u> eb <underline xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">A</u> PIs <underline xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">R</u> ecommendation), the first data-driven approach for web APIs recommendation that integrates web API discovery, verification and selection operations based on keywords search over the web API correlation graph. WAR assists app developers without detailed knowledge of web APIs in searching for appropriate and compatible web APIs by typing a few keywords that represent the tasks required to achieve app developers’ objectives. WAR can significantly save app developers’ time and effort in searching for web APIs. We conducted large-scale experiments on 18,478 real-world web APIs and 6,146 real-world apps to demonstrate the usefulness and efficiency of WAR.

This research develops a novel dynamic mobile health (mHealth) application (app), called the Clinical Event Annotator (CEA). The CEA comprises of a native Android tablet app and an administrative web app. The native app is used at the patient bedside to manually annotate clinical events in real-time. Event types include patient monitor alarms, routine care, clinical interventions, and patient movements. The app can be dynamically updated with user-defined customized events. The web app generates reports of the annotation sessions. The CEA app is developed to support a clinical study that explores the use of pressure-sensitive mats (PSM) in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) to detect the respiratory rate (RR), heart rate (HR), and movement of critically ill neonatal patients. High-fidelity CEA app annotations are synced with a backend database that enables integration and synchronization with independently acquired patient monitoring data, such as RR, HR, and contact pressure data from the PSM. The gold standard CEA annotations serve the purpose of retrospectively training machine learning algorithms for clinical event detection. Preliminary test results from use of the app in the clinical study are presented. Development of the CEA app is a unique and novel contribution that addresses the well-known problem of manually annotating physiologic data streams to support clinical data mining applications.

These days, almost every successful company owns a web application for their business. Essentially, companies try to develop a website that is easy to navigate, so that a user could have a great experience regardless of a used device. But, a web app, even if developed to be used on any device, can be constraining for a user as it does not have features that have been reserved to native apps. Thus, companies are forced to develop a native application for their product and two applications are needed for two different OS IOS and Android to reach all potential users and match the modern criteria of a successful product. However, such a strategy of developing a web and two native applications are time and money consuming, which is far from ideal from a business point of view. In 2015, Google introduced Progressive Web Apps (PWA), which aims to close the gap between web and native applications by combining the best features from web and native apps. In this article I am going to describe several APIs that can make PWA feel like a native app.

Mobile apps have been around for only a few years, but have gained immense consumer attention. Developers creating native apps are faced with the daunting task of maintaining different sources for each target platform, while web and hybrid apps are faced with a series of technical and non technical issues. Native apps function smoothly in a standard way that the user is already familiar with and provide the richest user experience having full and direct access to the onboard hardware and software. On the other hand web apps offer cross-platform compatibility, saving development time, effort and money for developers. Moreover, HTML5 is expected to enhance user experience offered by web apps, which is one of their major shortcomings. The aim of this paper is to investigate various aspects of HTML5 in mobile app development.

Mobile and web apps are playing an essential role in people’s daily life. ICT enhances internet connectivity to anyone and anything. In this case, the importance of mobile apps is critical in extreme environmental conditions such as ocean scenarios. Several mobile phone applications have been launched to encourage and assist fishermen through knowledge distribution, facilitating communication, monitoring geolocation, and assisting in boat-to-shore activities. However, these apps need internet connectivity to provide services. They are limited to working only on the shore using cellular connectivity. In this context, OceanNet, a marine communication infrastructure that our research center has developed and deployed in 2016. OceanNet provides affordable internet access up to 60 km from the shore. We have interviewed around hundred fishermen in the neighborhood to understand their requirements. We have also identified a few mobile and web applications developed for the fisherman. In this paper, we analyze and summarize the features provided by these web and mobile applications. We also discuss the requirements of the fisherman when they are sailing. In the future, we plan to develop suitable applications to address the gaps identified in this study.KeywordsOceanNetMarineCommunication appsFishermenLiterature surveyApp storePlay store

After breast cancer treatment, women with breast cancer may experience distress caused by treatment side effects, both in physical and psychological aspects. Technology use is increasing in favor among women. Therefore, it is essential to update the scientific evidence regarding mobile and web apps' effectiveness in managing the side effects of breast cancer treatments for breast cancer survivors. The purpose of this systematic review was to investigate the scientific evidence on the effectiveness of mobile and web apps in managing the side effects of breast cancer treatments among this group. A literature search was conducted using ScienceDirect, Scopus, PubMed, CINAHL, and Cochrane. Published papers in English focused on mobile and web apps and the side effects of breast cancer treatment in breast cancer survivors were selected. The search reviewed studies from January 2011 to December 2021. From a total of 925 retrieved manuscripts, 11 studies were included for analysis. The findings showed that mobile apps were more frequently used and more likely to be an effective method for managing the side effects of breast cancer treatment among breast cancer survivors. The content in web or mobile apps for breast cancer survivors should include five categories: (1) information about cancer, (2) overview of cancer care, (3) opportunities for interaction with other people, (4) symptom management strategies, and (5) feedback about cancer treatment side effect management. However, a few studies examined the effects of a combination of mobile and web apps in managing breast cancer treatment side effects. Therefore, future research is needed to examine solo and combination use. In addition, more rigorous studies are warranted to examine these interventions. Nurses may refer survivors to these resources to obtain more information and effectively manage the signs and symptoms of breast cancer and its treatment side effects.

위치정보와 지도를 이용하여 자신이나 타인 또는 사물의 경로추적이 필요한 경우가 있다. 최근에 모바일기기의 발달은 이것을 가능하게 하였다. 지금까지 스마트폰이나 태블릿 컴퓨터등의 모바일기기의 경로추적 시스템을 개발하는데 네이티브 방법을 사용하였다. 이 방법의 단점은 같은 서비스를 다른 플랫폼에 제공하려면 다시 작업해야한다는 것이다. 이런 단점을 극복하기 위하여 웹 앱과 하이브리드 앱이 개발되었다. 하이브리 앱은 네이티브앱과 외관상 비슷하기 때문에 사용자들이 웹 앱보다 더 선호한다. 본 논문에서는 모바일 기기에서 경로탐색이 가능한 앱을 개발하였다. 최근에 나온 HTML5에 위치정보 기능이 추가 되었는데 이를 이용하여 경로추적 시스템을 하이브리드 앱으로 구현하였다. 먼저 HTML5, CSS 와 자바스크립트 등을 이용하여 웹 앱을 만들고 이를 하이브리드 앱 도구의 하나인 폰갭을 이용하여 하이브리드 앱으로 변환하였다. 이 시스템의 구현으로 경로탐색이 필요한 여러 분야에서 모바일 기기에 관계없이 빠르고 효율적인 앱 개발이 가능하게 되었다. By using geolocation and maps, we need to trace the path of ourselves, others, or the objects. Until now, we used a native apps development mehod to develop path tracking systems in mobile devices such as smart phones and tablet computers. A disadvantage of this method is that we have to work again to provide the same service on different platforms. Web Apps and Hybrid Apps are developed to recover this disadvantage. Since Hybrid Apps look like Native Apps apparently, users prefer Hybrid Apps to Web Apps. In this paper, we develop a hybrid app which can trace the path on mobile devices. The recently suggested next generation markup language, HTML5, has geolocation features. By using them, we implemented a hybrid app for a path tracking system. First, we create a web app using HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript, Then, PhoneGap, a mobile development framework, is used to convert it to the hybrid app. By implementing hybrid app, various apps which need path tracking can be developed rapidly and effectively, regardless of the mobile devices.

Progressive web App is a web-based application development that includes the application of the latest technology from a browser that can be accessed quickly into one application without having to install. Progressive web applications can run like mobile applications in general, and the user interface is like using native applications. Progressive web app was invented in 1990. Progressive web App uses the latest Technology to produce web apps that provide a better User Experience and User Interface than mobile native. Progressive web app that is supported by a system called Service Worker, where the technology provides Offline Functionality, Notifications, Content Updates, Connectivity Changes and others. So that in a slow connection or an unstable connection you can access websites quickly and have the same appearance as the last time you opened the application via a Web Browser. This progressive web app can optimize web app performance to allow users to have an accessible experience with quickly and easily through browsers such as notebooks, personal computers or through mobile devices. This progressive web app is a service worker that allows a web app that can be run through all existing browsers and has a fairly simple and transparent process. So that the page that is opened, on the service worker site which is a proxy client that can be written in javascript, as well as being able to cache the assets needed for offline support which can determine certain events to activate the service worker such as push notifications, camera, and background sync. Keywords : Progressive Web Apps, Web, User Interface, Native Apps, User Experience

Current mobile Web applications (a.k.a, Mobile Web apps) become quite computation-intensive by involving complex JavaScript, e.g., Data analytic applications and AI games, etc. In the context of mobile-cloud computing, computation offloading is a promising solution to improve performance and user experiences for mobile devices, and a lot of research efforts have been made for native apps. However, very few attentions have been paid on mobile Web apps. Compared to native apps, the dynamic feature of Web apps poses some challenging issues for computation offloading. To address these issues, this paper presents a systematic approach for augmenting JavaScript-based mobile Web apps. Our approach proposes a programming abstraction to extract offload able computation-intensive portions for facilitating Web developers to define when an offloading can occur. We implement a browser-based offloading runtime service and deploy it as a front-end proxy on cloud, to automatically partition the Web apps afore the mobile devices. We demonstrate the efficiency of our approach with some typical computation-intensive Web apps across various high-end and low-end hardware specifications under Wi-Fi and cellular networks.

In chapters 2–6 I showed you how to build geo web apps using HTML and JavaScript. Apps created this way can be accessed by a web browser via their URLs. As I explained in Chapter 1, one significant disadvantage of web apps is that they cannot be uploaded to the Apple App Store, and therefore have less visibility than a native app. In addition, it is much harder to sell a web app without access to App Store sales platform tools. However, by using a few lines of code, it is possible to embed a web app in a native app, thus creating a hybrid app.