What is a mobile app?

Mobile websites

A mobile website is a website designed, developed, an optimized for mobile devices only. While mobile websites are designed to display and work on major browsers, they still require an internet connection and don't take advantage of the unique functionality of a mobile device.

Mobile apps

A mobile app is installable software that runs on mobile devices. Mobile apps user devices hardware and software features and usually provide an efficient, more intuitive and seamless user experience.

Pros

mobile apps are faster than mobile websites
mobile apps access the device or system resources, such as the location or Bluetooth
mobile apps can work without internet access

Cons

mobile apps can be quite expensive to build and more difficult to maintain
for a mobile app to be compatible with different platforms like iOS and Android, it is often required that it be built from scratch
It may also be difficult to have your app approved by the App Store if it does not meet specific requirements

Mobile app at Meta

So when we want to build something new or work on a new project at first we set goals for what we want to do for the app or the feature, do we want to grow it? Do we want to spread awareness about it and improve it? Do we want to change how it looks and feels? Do we want to make it more reliable? That's important in knowing what we actually want to do.

Now, once execution is complete, what we do is we roll out the experiment and in the experiment we monitor how users are responding to this feature.

If we see that the experiment is not performing as well. We ask ourselves the questions why is it not performing as well? Is it not clear to use, can we make it better? Is it not working the way we intend to? Is there a bug somewhere? If the answer to any of those is yes, then we go back iterate on that and then launch another experiment with those fixes and improvements.

How does a mobile OS work?

Learning objective: Explain how a mobile operating system (OS) works

The most fundamental software for any smartphone is its operating system (OS). An OS is designed to coordinate communications that occur between the hardware and software resources of mobile devices. Popular platforms such as Android and iOS provide a wide range of software stacks in addition to the built-in OS.

Mobile operating systems

A mobile OS typically starts up when a device powers up, displaying different application icons and user interface (UI) elements to users. The overall experience of the application and adapting, swiping or tapping is managed by the mobile OS.

The function of mobile operating systems

The major function of mobile operating systems is to allow smartphones, tablets, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and other handheld devices to run applications. The OS provides a channel with which applications can access device resources such as the processor, memory, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and more. Most of the mobile operating systems in the market are based on open (Android) or closed source (iOS)software.

Popular mobile operating systems

Android

Android is a mobile OS released in 2008. You’ll likely find that it is the base OS of most phones and tablets worldwide.

Android OS is based on a modified version of the Linux kernel and other open-source software. It is built primarily for smartphones, Chromebook, Android TV, Android Auto, as well as wearables such as smartwatches.

iOS

iOS is Apple’s proprietary OS that runs on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. iOS gives users a multitouch feel, meaning that all user input is via touch gesturing. Through several actions such as swiping, pulling and tapping, users can seamlessly interact with the screen. With built-in sensors such as gyroscopes and accelerometers, Apple devices allow users to switch between the orientations of applications when tilting the devices.

With the rise in popularity of iOS, developers now have more controls and access to its features. After the release of iPhone 2.0, Apple also released a software development kit (SDK), which is a set of tools that allows developers to build apps for the OS. Due to huge improvements with iPhone OS 3.0, developers were given more power with core location and push notifications. Finally, multitasking was introduced in iOS 4.0.

iOS platforms - iPhones and iPads

Learning objective: Explain various Apple platforms, including iPhones, iPads and wearables.

Over the years, Apple’s operating system has been one of the most preferred operating systems when it comes to mobile devices. It’s incredible to see how it has conveniently powered millions of devices across the world. This operating system is not limited to mobile devices, other non-mobile devices such as TVs, smartwatches, and even cars have been powered by it.

iPhones

Every mobile device requires an operating system to function. As for Apple, they developed iOS which was formerly called iphoneOS to power many of their mobile devices. This operating system is specifically designed to run only on Apple devices, which means that other non-Apple products will not be able to use it.

Other operating systems such as iPadOS, tvOS, and watchOS that were released later were built from iOS.

iPadOS

iPadOS is a mobile operating system designed to power Apple’s tablets, or iPads.

Developing apps for this type of device is easy. Let’s say you want your existing app to be available to iPad users. There are various ways you can ensure that your app is responsive when it’s installed on an iPadOS device. This way you never have to write the app from scratch.

MacOS

macOS, is a Unix based operating system, and is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. It was previously called Mac OS X and later changed to OS X. In the past few years, this OS has become the second most popular desktop OS, after Microsoft Windows and ahead of ChromeOS.

WatchOS

Apple Watch is one of the most popular wearables in the health industry. It has helped millions of people achieve their fitness and wellness goals over the years. This smartwatch can function with the help of its operating system called watchOS. It’s an extension of iOS which powers the popular iPhone. The operating system was launched on April 24, 2015, alongside the smartwatch, Apple Watch. As of today, this is the only device that can run the watchOS.

The following resources are some additional reading materials that cover iOS platforms, how a mobile OS work, and what mobile apps are all about.

[How mobile OS works](https://www.techtarget.com/searchmobilecomputing/definition/mobile-operating-system#:~:text=A mobile operating system (OS,information and provide application access.)
What is mobile development
iOS platform