The Role of Databases in Mobile Application Development

The mobile database extends the cloud computing model by distributing data storage and processing from the cloud to mobile devices running applications, writes Mark Gamble, director of product and solutions marketing at Couchbase, on The New Stack.

You may have heard that the use of mobile apps is increasing significantly around the world. Here are some interesting facts that support this:

There are approximately 6.5 billion smartphone users worldwide, and this number is constantly growing.

Every day, users spend between four and five hours on mobile applications.

In 2022, users will download 255 billion apps worldwide, up more than 80% from  2016.

With such a global boom in mobile app usage, organizations are rushing to bring their apps to market to take advantage of the demand. However, there are several issues they need to address before they start developing, such as which platforms to build the app for and where to store and process data in the app architecture.

The first question is the easiest, as the two dominant mobile operating systems in use today are iOS and Android, which account for 28% and 71% of the global mobile OS market, respectively. To get the broadest reach, most organizations should at least support these two operating systems. The development tools available when creating apps for these platforms typically fall into two categories: native and cross-platform.

Native development

Creating a "native app" means that you are developing an app specifically for a given mobile platform using a programming language that is native to that OS.

Native apps generally provide a better experience for users - they behave like other native apps on the device, usually perform better, and have direct access to device features like the microphone, camera, GPS, etc.

However, native development requires specialized skills and allows you to create apps only for a specific OS, so supporting both iOS and Android means developing and maintaining two code bases. Keep this in mind when planning your development approach.

Cross-platform development

Cross-platform development tools are integrated development environments (IDEs) that can create native apps for multiple platforms from a single core code base. While the “write once, run anywhere” capability of cross-platform tools saves time and reduces development effort, there may be trade-offs associated with features like menus and widgets that behave differently on each platform.

Developers must evaluate these differences and write code that takes these differences into account. And because of the extra layers of abstraction and rendering processes they introduce, cross-platform apps sometimes don’t perform as well as apps developed using native tools. But if your app requirements are relatively basic and not complex enough to justify separate development for each OS, cross-platform tools are a great option for quickly building iOS and Android apps, especially for organizations with limited resources and short delivery times.

What place does the database occupy?

When developing mobile apps, you need to decide where in the architecture the information will be stored and processed. If you decide to use a cloud database for the backend, your app will become dependent on the Internet. This may be fine in areas with a constant, reliable network, but what if the user gets into an elevator, a subway, or an airplane? Or what if they are disconnected from the network for a long time, such as on a hike or an ocean cruise? An app that depends on the Internet will fail in areas where there is no connection, making it unusable.

The key to user satisfaction is to provide a great experience and to do this, your app must always be fast and accessible, no matter where it is used. The only way to do this is with a mobile database, which is a database technology designed specifically for mobile apps.

The term "mobile database" refers to a database deployment that extends the cloud computing model by distributing data storage and processing from the cloud to mobile devices running applications. A mobile database consists of a central cloud database, an embedded database running locally in applications on mobile devices, and automatic data synchronization between these databases.

With a mobile database, data is stored and processed on the device, allowing the app to work reliably even without the Internet. Automatic synchronization takes advantage of connectivity when it’s available, synchronizing data in its most compact form between the device and the cloud to ensure consistency across the app ecosystem.

When you embark on a mobile app development journey, choosing a database is of utmost importance. To ensure the success and popularity of your app, be sure to use a mobile database with built-in synchronization that supports your development tools, whether native or cross-platform.

Native iOS App Development Tools

For iOS app development, Apple provides Xcode, an IDE that includes everything you need to code native iOS apps. Xcode developers create iOS apps using one of two programming languages: Swift or Objective-C.

Objective-C was the primary programming language used by Apple until 2014, and it remains widely used by developers due to its stability, compatibility with C and C++, and ability to create all types of applications, from lightweight to large and complex.

Swift was introduced by Apple in  2014 as an open-source programming language designed to be faster than Objective-C. It offers a simpler syntax than Objective-C, making it easier for new developers to learn.

Native Android App Development Tools

Android Studio is an IDE built specifically for Android development. Developers who create apps in Android Studio use either Java or Kotlin.

Java is a mature and popular language that was first introduced in 1995. It offers excellent performance, a large collection of libraries, and many frameworks and tools for Android development, and has a large community of dedicated Java developers around the world.

Kotlin was introduced in 2011 as an open-source programming language for Android app development. It was designed to provide compatibility, transparency, and tooling support. It is considered easier to learn than Java.

Offered under the Apache 2.0 license, Couchbase Lite mobile database supports Objective-C and Swift for iOS apps and Java and Kotlin for Android apps.

Cross-platform frameworks

There are many options for cross-platform development. Here are four of the most popular frameworks.

Flutter was created by Google in 2017. Flutter developers who use it use the Dart programming language to create mobile apps. It includes an SDK for compiling code into native iOS and Android apps and has become known for its simplicity and speed of compilation.

React Native is a cross-platform framework for developing iOS and Android apps using JavaScript. It has become popular because it offers the ease of using JavaScript to create native iOS and Android apps.

Xamarin is an open-source platform from Microsoft for building iOS, Android, and Windows apps. NET. Xamarin.Form is a Xamarin-specific feature that allows developers to build apps for multiple platforms from a single code base.

Ionic was introduced in 2013 as an open-source SDK for building iOS and Android apps using standard libraries such as React, Angular, and Vue.

Flutter developers can benefit from the community-supported Couchbase Lite for Dart project, which implements Couchbase Lite for Dart and Flutter. There is also documentation on using Couchbase Lite for React Native mobile apps, as well as for Xamarin and Ionic.

The importance of mobile development will continue to grow as mobile app usage continues to increase worldwide. Fast and reliable app performance is key to delighting users and standing out in a crowded market.