Six years ago, PhoneGap (a.k.a. Apache Cordova) burst onto the scene with tremendous fanfare. It promised near-total code sharing across iOS, Android and Windows using HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Since then, both the technology and the market have matured. We’ve learned some good lessons. We have better tools, a more diverse ecosystem and a deeper understanding of the architecture’s strengths and weaknesses. In this hour, we’ll explore the state of hybrid app development using real-world data to answer: When are businesses choosing to go hybrid over native and why? How has the ecosystem evolved and who’s invested in making it thrive? How have best practices changed with the rise of dev ops? With technologies like React Native on the horizon, what will hybrid apps look like in the future? --- RYAN J. SALVA MICROSOFT

1. THE STATE OF HYBRID APPS
RYAN J. SALVA
MICROSOFT
@ryanjsalva

2. Innovators Early Adopters Early Majority Late Majority Laggards
Diffusion of innovations is a theory that seeks to
explain how, why, and at what rate new ideas and
technology spread through cultures.
Everett Rogers
Scholar, Sociologist, Author…
and all around swell guy

3. Innovators Early Adopters Early Majority Late Majority Laggards
Consumer Apps
Late majority market
Revenue through the app store
Top priority: Premium UX
Business Apps
Very early majority market
Mobile apps are a cost center
Deployed to private stores
Top priority: Time-to-market

4. Build B2E, B2B and/or B2C
CxO
Enterprise Architect
Stakeholders
Developers
Solution Architects
Dev. Leads
IT Manager
Dev. Manager
I’m interested in a (E2E) mobile app
strategy
I want lower costs, everyone wants to
keep costs down
We were targeting iOS, but now we need
Android, Windows and…
Security is critical
I have backend data and enterprise
systems to integrate
App analytics is important
Time-to-market, UX or performance is
most important
I tried cross-platform 6+ months ago, but
had mixed results
Hiring good iOS developers is expensive
Platform-specific teams make it difficult
to coordinate features and schedule
releases
Re-training is costly. Hiring new people is
even more costly.
Testing is complex and time consuming –
especially Android.
Macs in the enterprise are an IT
challenge (build, cost, admin)
After 400+ interviews, here’s what we’re hearing…

5. The most common path
Step 1
Pilot App
Most organizations begin with a pilot
app either outsourced to an agency
or adapted from a web app.
Pilot App

6. The most common path
Step 2
Bring it in-house
Next, IT departments bring a single
platform (usually iOS or Android) in-
house.
In-house
Step 1
Pilot App

7. The most common path
Step 2
In-house
Step 3
Add a platform
A single platform is rarely enough.
That’s when code sharing starts to
become a top priority.
Add a Platform
Step 1
Pilot App

8. The most common path
Step 2
In-house
Step 3
Add a Platform
Step 1
Pilot App
Dev Ops
Dev Ops
Mature IT departments start to
integrate dev ops workflows similar
to those found in web today.

9. Magic QuadrantLEADERSCHALLENGERS
VISIONARIESNICHE PLAYERS
Microsoft
Mendix
Globe
MicroStrategy
Embarcadero
Zebra
Oracle
DSI
Backbase
Appcelerator
Xamarin
Telerik
Pegasystems
Kony
IBM
Adobe
SAP
SalesForce
Appian
CompletenessofVision
Ability to Execute
Ability to Execute
• Product or Service
• Overall Viability
• Sales Execution/Pricing
• Market Responsiveness/Record
• Marketing Execution
• Customer Experience
• Operations
Completeness of Vision
• Market Understanding
• Marketing Strategy
• Sales Strategy
• Offering (Product) Strategy
• Business Model
• Vertical/Industry Strategy
• Innovation
• Geographic Strategy

10. Magic QuadrantLEADERSCHALLENGERS
VISIONARIESNICHE PLAYERS
Microsoft
Globe
Oracle
Telerik
Kony
IBM
Adobe
SAP
SalesForce
CompletenessofVision
Ability to Execute
9 of 20 are hybrid solutions
• Speed-to-Market
• Re-use of existing skills, assets, processes
• Nearly 100% shared code
• Strong ecosystem
• Mature tools
• Updates without re-submitting to stores

11. 2X the Nearest Competitor
61%
35%
31%
18%
15%
13%
12%
9%
4%
3%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%
PhoneGap/Cordova
Xamarin
Unity
Qt
Adobe Air
Appcelerator
Corona
Marmelade
Codename One
Live Code
Using this tool Prioritize this tool
Vision Mobile Analysis of Cross-Platform Development, July 2015

12. Untappd

13. WeChat

14. Zynga Mob Wars

15. Swork It

16. Instagram

17. Feedly

18. Uber

19. AT&T

20. Apple App &
Book Stores

21. So… yeah.
It’s working for some people.

22. What’s your top frustration?
“Documentation is not
comprehensive.”
“Documentation
stays out-of-date.”
“Non-core plugins feel
like hobby projects –
not maintained well.”
“There’s no single authoritative source for
documentation. Do I go to PhoneGap,
Cordova… somewhere else?”
“Writing a plugin is not
well-documented.”
“When I built the before-mentioned carrier plugin, I
want through hell. NOTHING in the documentation
worked. And yes, I chose the doc version that
matched at the time my Cordova CLI.”
“Every minor version bump
fucks something up.”
“Cordova just seem unstable to me. EVERYTIME
I install or remove a plugin I actually make 2 or 3
folder backups (since the platforms and plugins
dirs are always on gitignore).”
Sourced from 300+ survey responses, 12 interviews, email feedback

23. Who’s contributing to the ecosystem?
+100s of independent contributors

24. Who’s contributing to the platform?
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1600
Cordova lib Android ios windows plugins
Commits by Feature Area
MS Google Adobe Other
0
50
100
150
200
250
January February March April May June
Commits Over Time
Microsoft Adobe Google Other

25. A global audience
Country %
India 14.21%
United States 12.57%
Brazil 5.34%
China 4.73%
France 4.52%
Germany 4.3%
Italy 3.74%
United Kingdom 3.43%
Spain 2.87%
Canada 2.38%
Google Analytics for Apache Cordova, October 2015

26. Cordova user base is growing…
Nov-13 Feb-14 May-14 Aug-14 Nov-14 Feb-15 May-15 Aug-15
Cordova CLI monthly download count
Sourced from NPM stats, Google Analytics

27. Nearly 200% growth in three years
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%
PhoneGap/Cordova
Xamarin
Unity
Qt
Adobe Air
Appcelerator
Corona
Marmelade
Codename One
Live Code
2012 2015
Vision Mobile Analysis of Cross-Platform Development, July 2015

28. State of the Platform
Sourced from 300+ survey responses, 12 interviews, email feedback

29. What technology do you use?
Sourced from 300+ survey responses

30. 5✰ to 1✰ App Ratio
2.8
3.5 3.5 3.7 3.8
4.1 4.2
5
5.8
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
jQT jQuery
Mobile
Knockout jQuery Angular Dojo Ionic Zepto.js Backbone
Vision Mobile Analysis of Cross-Platform Development, July 2015

31. Cordova Summit in Redmond
Attended by Adobe, Meteor, Monaca, IBM, Intel, SalesForce & many remotely

32. Cordova Roadmap
• Documentation and on-boarding
New website & docs launched late September
• Driving quality into the plugin ecosystem
Big push to triage and resolve backlog of bugs; normalizing quirks for core plugins
• Unified versioning to assist with stability
Dev Kits released through the Tools for Apache Cordova (http://taco.tools)
• Support for Immerging Native APIs
Day Zero Window 10 support; Android Marshmallow support in Nov.; iOS9 support Dec.

33. Web Apps Native Apps
Breadth of Devices Rich Experiences
Pinned Sites
ManifoldJS
Apache Cordova
and it’s downstreams
TabrisJS
Ionic
Titanium
NativeScript
Xamarin
ReactNative
WEBVIEW
Transpilers
Full access to device capabilities
Native performance
Highly customized per device
Arbitrated access to device capabilities
Web performance
Maximum code sharing

34. Thank you.
@ryanjsalva
Visual Studio Tools for Apache Cordova

35. Back-up Slides

36. References
• Vision Mobile Cross-Platform Tools 2015
• Survey of 1,664 developers from 143 countries.
• Supplemented by an analysis of over 180,000 apps from Google Play,
examining the JavaScript libraries and frameworks they use within Cordova.
• Gartner Magic Quadrant: Mobile Application Development Platforms
• Microsoft Independent Research
• Interviews with 400+ developers

37. What’s good?
“Ohmygod I'm a front-end
dev doing mobile apps!!”
“Great community”
“Easy to get started”
“I love it because it is a
cross platform tool”
Sourced from 300+ survey responses, 12 interviews, email feedback

38. What can be improved?
“After upgrading Cordova,
my APK app cannot access
the internet...”
“When I try to upgrade
already released apps,
generally they do not run due
to breaking changes.”
“Brittle” – Multiple components version
independently – finding the magic
combination that works is difficult.
The idea behind cordova is awesome, but it is
still (strangely) a very inconsistent and imature
platform that makes me shit my paints
everytime I do any kind of update with it.
Sourced from 300+ survey responses, 12 interviews, email feedback

39. THE STATE OF HYBRID APPSRYAN SALVA

40. THE STATE OF HYBRID APPS
RYAN SALVA

41. THE STATE OF HYBRID APPS
RYAN SALVA