Why Native Mobile Development is so Important Now

Age of Context

I’m close to finishing a great book by Robert Soble and Shel Isabel call the “Age of Context”. In this book they describe the mobile phone (iPhone or Android) as being the hub of the Age of Context. It will be the device that controllers all other devices (thermostats, refrigerators, garage doors, front door and security systems). There are already APIs being developed by both Apple (HomeKit) and Google (Nest SDK) to hack the home. These APIs have been written in the native SDKs; not JavaScript.

A lot of enterprises have a strange fear of native iOS and Android development. A bunch of other solution are out there: PhoneGap (PhoneCrap), AngularJ and jQuery Mobile. These are all great solutions for mobilizing existing web apps but they miss the point of the Age of Context. In the Age of Context where your phone is the controller, you will need to talk to devices using Bluetooth LE, Wifi or lower level protocol stack. JavaScript does not have access to these stacks so, if enterprises want to spend time training people to learn technologies that “skate to where the puck is” they will simply need to retrain people (again) to take part in the coming Age of Context.