When you have decided to build a mobile app, you must consider both the platforms such as Android and iOS. But unfortunately, building two native apps at one go can be really expensive and time-consuming. This is where hybrid development helps. Ionic is the undisputed leader of hybrid development frameworks because of its rich capabilities and ease of use.
But like many startups, you may focus your attention on just the Android platform because it allows you to reach out to the wide-open world of the mobile audience. You get access to the largest audience while keeping options open for extending to iOS in the time to come. To excite you, even more, Ionic is an excellent technology for Android app development.
In more than one way, Ionic proved to be one of the best technologies so far for Android application design and development. Here in this blog post, we will explain the key advantages of using Ionic for Android development. Let’s start by introducing the Ionic framework.
What exactly is Ionic?
Ionic, developed way back in 2013, is an open-source mobile app development framework that several million app developers have used across the spectrum. Despite being a hybrid development technology, it offers developers a multitude of platform-specific native UI elements.
On the other hand, Ionic is trusted by developers because it uses the most common protocols and technologies used by the websites, such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Angular. This gives Ionic an edge in terms of easy learning curve and ease of deployment across platforms.
How do Ionic works?
To understand the promises and advantages of Ionic, it is important to look closely at how the framework works. First of all, Ionic is based upon Apache Cordova & Angular, two leading and widely popular frontend technologies. Developers leverage this framework for building dynamic web pages and PWA. By extending the capabilities of Angular CLI, Ionic can also develop powerful and dynamic mobile apps as well.
As for accessing native features and functionalities of the respective platforms, Ionic always uses Apache Cordova plugins. Apache Cordova comes as a powerful technology that, by using tried and tested web technologies and its APIs, can also help build powerful mobile apps.
Ionic uses WebView, which is why Ionic cannot have direct access to the respective mobile hardware if not facilitated with permissions. This is where Apache Cordova helps by packaging the respective native APIs as powerful plugins for using platform-specific device features such as accelerometer, GPS, camera, gyroscope, etc. This is how Ionic manoeuvres its access to native APIs. Ionic uses the Cordova bridge to connect the native UI elements.
Key Benefits that Make Ionic Special
Ionic is a hybrid development framework that has reached prominence for many reasons. Apart from the reusability of the code, Ionic also makes development easier because of its modular architecture and built-in native API access and tools. If you have a new Android app project, Ionic can easily take away many of your concerns, including the budget. Let’s explain these advantages one by one.
Ionic is a free and open-source technology.
Web technologies are mostly open to everyone, and so is Ionic. Ionic is an entirely open-source technology that allows anyone to use it immediately for the Android app project. Without paying a dime for licensing, developers can use Ionic for their projects.
On the other hand, being open-source, Ionic also opens up the door for value additions from all corners. Boasting a large community of developers, Ionic is continuously evolving and making development easier with new native API plugins and other tools.
Ionic is based on Angular.
Ionic framework is entirely built upon the AngularJS framework. It utilizes Angular to help startups with a small teams. With its component-based nature and two-way data binding, Angular ensures quick development while maintaining the dynamic character throughout.
Over the years, Angular is considered to be the most evolved framework that. Despite going through so many versions and changes, always remained a favourite for Startups because of its simplicity. As a framework, Angular is the easily approachable technology used across a multitude of demanding web and app projects.
A customizable & visually engaging default interface
Ionic comes with an array of visually engaging CSS and JavaScript components required to create the look and feel of the app. Most of the simple UI design elements for Android apps are provided, such as Navigation, Sliding Menu, Sliding boxes, Buttons, Lists, Tabs, Prompts and popups, user Forms, etc.
Ionic comes with an array of default styles that turn Ionic apps sleek, low-footprint and simple. On the other hand, customizing these elements using pre-configured CSS classes is much easier. On top of all these, designers can always tweak things to create more styles of their UI design and layout.
Native feature integration
One of the major and widely cited aspects that made Ionic popular as a hybrid development framework is easy to access to all native features and functionalities. Since Ionic uses tried and trusted web technologies, the Cordova makes things easier for assimilating native APIs.
The Cordova plugins bring all native features and functionalities such as a Camera, GPS, gyroscope, contacts, accelerometer, and several others, ensuring optimum native look, feel, and user experience. On top of that, Ionic also ensures quicker access to native features through ngCordova, which is an Angular JS extension.
Wrapping Up
Ionic is the only hybrid app development framework that became so popular for its awesome native features and capabilities. Naturally, suppose you are building an Android app at a shorter budget and want to extend to other platforms like iOS in the future. In that case, ionic should be considered the ideal technology-Blinkpostings.
Author Bio:
Ciaran Stone is the CEO of Square Root Solutions, A well-known mobile app development company in Ireland. For the last 6 years, Ciaran has helped many businesses in building scalable, robust & secure mobile app solutions. Reading, researching and writing an informative article about new technologies in app development is his favourite thing to do in his keen time.
