You Already Have What You Need to Build a Native Mobile App

When you think about creating a native mobile app, you likely think of the years and years of training, coding, and trial and error that goes into it. While yes, it can take years to fully refine native development skills, a fully-functional native app may be more in-reach than you think.

What if we told you that you could build a native app without needing to learn a new framework, a new tool, or a new coding language? As long as you have web expertise, Capacitor makes it easier than ever to get a native app up and running. 

With a minimal learning curve, you can use the skills you already have to get an app up and running quickly. As companies strive to do more with less, this proves invaluable. And don’t take our word for it – read on for how one developer with no native experience built a brand new app and got it into the app store in just two weeks. 

The learning curve isn’t as steep as you think 

In 2022, Stack Overflow surveyed over 70,000 developers around the world to learn which coding languages they use the most and it was clear that the web continues to reign supreme. JavaScript continued to be the most popular language for the 10th year in a row, with a whopping 65% of respondents using it. Close behind were HTML/CSS, which were among developers’ most favored technologies as well. 

While many developers already know and love web technologies, they may not realize that they already have a leg up when it comes to native app development. Utilizing web technologies, developers can create beautiful, performant apps that tap into a device’s native features. Capacitor enables web developers to reuse their code to create mobile apps from their existing web applications. Developers can reuse the UI they’ve built for the web in a native app, all without ever having to learn a native development language.

Do more with less

In today’s fast-paced development landscape, it’s all about doing more with less. Development teams are tasked with cranking out apps, updates, and fixes quicker than ever. That often means developers are working on multiple projects across various platforms. Software engineering leaders are also looking at ways to save money and avoid hiring additional native mobile developers for a premium mobile customer experience.

With Capacitor, a single web development team can massively increase their productivity and output. The same premium mobile experience typically found in traditional native applications is easily managed through Capacitor’s integrations with native platform services and APIs. By encapsulating the web application and exposing these features and functions, team’s can quickly create beautifully curated, performant native iOS and Android applications. From this same codebase, teams can maintain their web app experience, spin up a desktop app, and deploy a Progressive Web App to extend their reach beyond the mobile app stores.

Capacitor also enables teams to work faster than ever, especially when paired with Appflow, Ionic’s CI/CD solution. Appflow enables developers to publish directly to the app stores, bypass app store approval when sending users live updates, compile native app binaries in the cloud, and automate the app delivery pipeline. 

From draft to app store in 2 weeks

Marc Louvion had no idea how native apps worked. 14 days later, he submitted his first app to the App Store. 

Habits Garden gamifies the creation of good habits by showing users’ habit progress as a garden. As users complete tasks, their garden grows and flourishes, as do the positive habits they’re creating. Now, with over 6,000 users, Habits Garden is helping people overcome procrastination and achieve their goals in a fun, interactive way. 

So how did Marc create this app without any native development knowledge? With Capacitor. Initially written on the web, Marc was able to use Capacitor to create a beautiful mobile app while reusing about 98% of his existing code. A few minor tweaks and Habit Garden was optimized for mobile. 

Marc was also able to integrate payments and a status bar feature, both native components, into the app without any native development experience. Marc noted how “almost no native [knowledge is] needed with Capacitor” and when asked if he planned to learn native development, he stated that there was now no need, thanks to Capacitor. 

“Capacitor makes mobile app development as easy as building web apps” said Louvion. 

“I don’t see a reason not to use Capacitor: if you’re a solopreneur, you’ll save tons of time. If you’re an established startup, your users won’t see the difference with native.”

15 days after the project began, Habits Garden was live in the app stores. You can find Habits Garden in the iOS and Google Play store as well as on the web now.

Take it a step further

While Capacitor is an open-source powerhouse on its own, it’s made even better by the premium plugins that seamlessly integrate with it. From upping your app’s security to securely processing payments, there’s nothing you can’t do with Ionic’s Enterprise SDK. 

Enterprise SDK has everything you need to build enterprise-grade cross-platform mobile apps for iOS, Android, and the web. It includes advanced security features, such as biometric identification, single sign-on, and secure storage. It also has premier integration support with leading 3rd-party services, such as Microsoft Intune, Couchbase Lite, and more, so you can tailor your app down to the finest detail. Enterprise SDK also includes professional support and advisory services to help development teams reach their goals more efficiently. 

Get started today

Ready to create a beautiful, performant app? Start a trial today. 

If your team is looking to move faster, safeguard users, and build with confidence knowing you have expert help available every step of the way, Ionic’s Enterprise SDK is for you. It’s free to get started with a 14-day trial!