Week 5 was about the different types of mobile applications: online, hybrid, native, meta. It`s a topic I thought would be covered by one of the previous weeks as it counts more into the basic understanding section.
All three main types were discussed with pro and cons, and it is pretty clear now to me that SAP is pushing mobile developers to code native apps. Even the benefits of a mobile web page were presented with some snobism; as if mobile developers that are not coding native apps do not really count. While one of the benefits of native development is full access to device features, when do you need this in the context of a business application? You know, the logon -> list -> detail -> dialog style apps. That can be done with a hybrid or mobile app too, and going HTML5 saves you a lot of trouble. Specially when the non mobile users want the same new UI. In case you want to do a approval app inspired by Angry Birds: go ahead and develop it as a native app (“you travel was rejected as your manager only scored 1 star”).
To give you an example, some mobile web dissing was practiced in unit 2 when a mobile logon page with SAPUI5 was shown. The “big problem” pointed out was that it takes a lot of requests to load the resources needed to access the logon page: 82 requests.
Well SAP, only you. And only with SAPUI5. Let’s take a look at a real world mobile logon, like from LinkedIn.
That’s 10 requests for loading the logon page https://touch.www.linkedin.com/login.html for the first time. And if you just enter m.linkedin.com you get some redirects, but with cache enabled, it just 8 requests.
8 vs. 82. That mobile online web app deficit should be revised when the course is offered once more.
When the topic came to meta apps I was silently hoping that Syclo will be part of this week. Maybe even a trial of Syclo in SMP for course participants? Well, unfortunately, this wasn`t the case. At first I thought this week will be theory only. I was wrong. Some coding happened and in the download section 3 apps appeared, 1 HWC and 2 native Android apps. Luckily, these worked with the Gateway demo system provided. No coding inside Gateway needed this time!
The HWC sample app imported fine, but showed an error. A JAR file could not be found. This was a left over from the original source.
After deleting this reference the WHC app started and worked just fine. The 1st Android app started fine after the changes in the property file were done. The application connections in my SMP trial account are filling up:
I wasn`t able to start the 2nd Android application with the GMC feature; and honestly I am also too lazy to investigate the problem further.
Remains only one question: web, hybrid, native, meta? There is no answer, it depends on your scenario. This also means: when your scenario changes, you may have to switch. Plan accordingly.
Other blogs in this series from me about the open SAP course: Introduction to Mobile Solution Development
- Survived week 1: Introduction to Mobile Solution Development
- Still alive after week 2: Enterprise Mobility Enablement Services
- Any given Tuesday – week 3: Introduction to Mobile Solution Development
- Do apps dream of electric sheep? Week 4
- Remember, all I'm offering is the truth – nothing more – week 5
- Open the pod bay doors, SMP – week 6
- SAP Managed Tags:
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