This study evaluates the performance difference between hybrid and native mobile applica-tions when accessing the low level API. The purpose of this study is to find out the differ-ence in performance between the different methods for developing applications due to an increasing market for platform independent applications. Several benchmarks were created to measure the performance on the following criteria, execution time, memory allocation and storage space. The benchmarks were developed with a similar behaviour to match the functionality. The Titanium benchmarks were around 8.5 times larger in storage space and used 26-28% larger heap when it came to memory than the equivalent Android benchmarks. Android generally has a lower execution time than Titanium, however there are cases such as the math library where Titanium has a lower execution time.

The thesis deals with concept of mobile application from a phase of a thought to the final concept of the application. The main goal of this thesis is a concept of mobile application for travellers, which will provide offline, but current information in their mobile phones during their travels. The first part contains introduction about mobile phones and platforms which they use, the next part deals with selected parts of UI and UX on Apple mobile phones and these findings are applied to the concept of mobile application. The whole concept is also influenced by findings from an online user survey and from analysis of applications of competitors. In this thesis is also described the evolution of the concept based on user testing. There are economic aspects of the aplication like monetizing the application and propagation described as well.

Mobile applications can be developed using a variety of different techniques and technologies. One of the most recent of these techniques is the Progressive Web Application (PWA), a cross-platform solution that is built exclusively using common web technologies. The technique has great potential to become a major competitor to native applications but is currently held back by a few rather significant limitations. This project was initiated because of a significant lack of academic research on the topic of PWA, and a perceived poor level of knowledge in the industry about the technique. The goal of the project was to determine if PWA deserved broader utilization or if the current low level of adoption was justified. During the project, two surveys were conducted. The first survey asked mobile application developers from companies in different countries about things such as their knowledge of, experience with, and opinions of PWA. The second survey asked similar questions but was instead answered by lecturers in higher education in Sweden only. The results of this project show that the average level of knowledge of PWAis very low and that developers’ opinions of the technique are quite negative. The limitations of PWA were found to be few but crippling to its potential to achieve widespread adoption.