One of the first research questions I had was "When you create a mobile application, should this be done native or web?" In the last 3 months I didn\'t find a real answer to that question. What I did find is that it depends on lots of sub-questions that need to be answered first. To name a few:

• Do you want to access native functions like camera, contact list or file system
• Do you need to be able to update the programming
• Which target group are you going to target
• Which mobile phones do you want to target
  • Should it be cross platform compatible
• Does the data that needs to be displayed be up to date, does it change a lot
• Do you want to deploy it your self
• Do you want people paying for your service
  • How do you want people to pay
• How many times do people access your application on a daily basis
• What is the budget
• Do you have the programming skills
• and lots of more questions....

Next to these findings and questions there are some other solutions that seem to be really interesting. You have Hybrid, a mixture between native application and web application. To use this kind of solution you need to be able to access the phone manufacture API. The API gives you access to some of the native functions, like GPS, Contact list, File systems and others. I really depend the API you use and phone. This rules out already a lot of the mobile phones that are out there, this is the same as making an Native application btw. But if that\'s your target group it could be realy interesting to look at Hybrid applications. Especially if you need to be able to update the programming, front-end or back-end. Again, for hybrid you realy are dependend to the API.

Download the matrix: Desicion matrix mobile applications (8kb, PDF)