App, Web App and Web sites optimized for mobile devices

Let's try to tell a clear and two different concepts with each other but too often confused: create a mobile version of a website is different from creating an app or web app!

What is an App?

On every smartphone or tablet - it is Android, iPhone OS or whatever - you can install the appllicazioni (more commonly known as APP) which, just as with the software on a shared computer, go to extend the native capabilities of the device including at 'internal operating system.

We try to clarify: when we buy a device - such as an iPhone - that it comes with a basic configuration that includes several utilities that the parent - in this case Apple - has seen fit to include in the OS, among the features this type are, for example, a calendar, an application for the weather, a calculator, notepad, etc..

Once purchased the device, be it a smartphone or tablet, we are offered the opportunity to customize these features by adding new according to our tastes and our needs. To do this you need to connect to the appropriate marketplace - where we will connect the iPhone to 'AppStore - navigate through the different apps available and download those that interesting. These will be installed on our device going, in fact, to enrich its capabilities.

From a technical point of view it is - in effect - no other software - from a philosophical point of view, I mean - those we are used to purchase and install on your home PC!

What is a Web app?

We can define a Web Application as a cross between an app and a website. Basically it's advanced Web pages that offer complex functionality similar to that provided by common Appliazioni installed on the device. This is possible thanks to the scripting languages ​​(both client-side server side) that allow you to create real applications (available through a browser) that are similar, even from the standpoint of the user interface (UI), the Common App! (This is possible thanks to technologies such as AJAX that allow you to play in a typical behavior of the network interface software, such as managing content updates without having to refresh any page).

While a common app is physically installed on the device, a Web-App is - to put it simply - a link to a remote application. Such a solution involves the disadvantage of richiedre, in order to work properly, the availability of access to the network but has the advantage not to have any influence on the storage capacity of the device and being substantially independent of the computing capacity of the same: speed of a web app depends, in fact, the goodness of the connection to the Internet is the performance of the remote server offering the processing required by the user.

Another advantage of Web-App is their independence from the marketplace and compatibility with a plurality of OS: A developer who ventures into the creation of applications for mobile devices must necessarily accept the rules (sometimes very hard) set by the various store and also will have to create different applications for all types of mobile operating system! Developing a Web app, on the contrary, it is not necessary to rely on a store nor create different versions for different OS. A web-app is well done (more or less) universal and can be used on any smartphone or tablet.

App and web-sites optimized for mobile devices

We have already said, but I think it should be clarified on re: a Web-App is a website developed then, in a sense, there is a strong bond of kinship between a web site optimized for mobile devices and a Web-App. That said it should be clear from the outset that the purpose of this guide is to teach how to develop complex applications using scripting languages, but is to guide the reader on a path towards the creation of simple web pages that are optimized for use by smartphones. Any advanced features are therefore left with, beyond the specific references to the skills and knowledge to the reader.

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