Blackberry apps: Native or webapps?

Question

Dear all,

I have read the Blackberry documentation and it is possible to push a notification from a webapp. I am planning to create a Blackberry application that compliments to our webapps. But I am still left in the middle whether to develop a webapp or native Blackberry app. I have also look at how a webapp runs on Blackberry browser and it looks smooth.

From your experience does the native app offer something that the webapp doesn't? Bonus question, is Facebook and Twitter app on Blackberry a native app or a webapp? If it is a webapp, is it possible to make a launcher for the application on Blackberry?

Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

Facebook and Twitter are on both types. The web apps are just a website formatted for a small screen so anything you do in say asp.net will show on a blackberry web app if you program it to. The native app just feels like part of my phone. You can save data on the phone so if your app is a relating to news or something that would be stored I can read it offline or slow connectivity (camping, rural areas, etc...). It can also interact with other feature that blackberry offers such as contacts, email, media player, etc...

If you would like to save anything for the user to view without pinging the internet a native app would be preferred.

It's possible to create a launcher but I haven't created one so I'm not sure of the details. I would assume it's just an app that opens the browser to your URL.

One more thing about a web app would be if your application stores users settings (twitter auth key, etc...) they would need to be stored on your server and not the users phone adding more expense and maintenance.

Good Luck.

Answer 2

Let's not forget that the blackberry browser is really bad as well. I don't know any BB users who would want to use a web application because of that.

When it comes to native apps, you have some choice however and you are not restricted to java (depending on which OS version you want to target). In addition to the mentioned Java, you can use Widget (link for resources) that behaves like a native app, but can be accessed like a web app.

Answer 3

I was just at innoTech and they had a whole session on this topic. But instead of recaping it let me just post the funny video they showed at the end which sums it all up.

Mobile Dev Rap Battle: Native Code vs. Web Apps

Answer 4

Widget is not supported for device software less than 5 , you combine both of web and native development by using browser field ,but you need to consider that its Java Script support is poor