-5

I need to work on a project in web-application but really need to have it as a mobile application because the target environment make use of phones more than laptops, though also planning on having the web application later. The application is like a social-network site but not for social contact. It has basically 2 different kinds of users (Common users & Professional users). Every user must be able to create his profile, and the common users must be able to follow professional users (just like twitter).

My questions are:

  1. Can I just have it as a web application and then look for a way to convert it to a mobile application as I only have experience with web but not with mobile applications?

    Taking facebook as an example, does it has a separate mobile application or just convert the web application to mobile app?

  2. What kind of database(relational or non-relational) is suitable for this kind of task.

Thank you.

woz
  • 10,888
  • 3
  • 34
  • 64
arewa
  • 95
  • 9
  • This isn't really a place for requirements gathering. This is a place for helping programmers find solutions. If you'd like consulting services, many members will offer them gladly. For a fee. – 323go Nov 12 '12 at 16:30

2 Answers2

0

Taking facebook as an example, does it has a separate mobile application or just convert the web application to mobile app?

In previous versions of their iOS app, they essentially rendered a web app inside a mobile app wrapper. This resulted in a terrible user experience, and they did a ground-up rewrite for version 5 and made it a fully native app.

Amy Worrall
  • 16,250
  • 3
  • 42
  • 65
0

It depends on the end product and what level of device integration you hope to have (and when you hope to have it).

To start with, it sounds like you'd be best served by designing a standard web application with mobile support... if you are diligent and design EVERYTHING to support mobile browsers then there isn't any reason that your initial deployment won't have support for both desktop and mobile platforms on day one!

Another thing to consider, if platform-specific mobile applications are a long term goal, is the architecture of your application. If you plan now to decouple the data and logic from the UI (MVC pattern) you'll find yourself in a much better position to quickly develop service-consuming mobile applications without having to touch your existing application or server software at all! You can even go so far as to make your web-application service-oriented, which could reduce mobile application development to a simple UI implementation.

The choice of DB really depends on what you need to do, though my personal choice for any "normal" web application would be relational. Here is a link to another question tha thas been answered on the subject of non-relational databases: Why would I want to use a non-relational database?

Community
  • 1
  • 1
Kreebog
  • 51
  • 2
  • Thanks for the detailed explanation. Starting as a platform specific is not a bad idea (blackberry or android). I will like to look into that section as you have analyzed it. I would have just made the choice of the web app with mobile support but want to have it as a stand alone app on mobile and users won't need to task their brain to remember a site name. – arewa Nov 12 '12 at 17:05