research-article

Hybrid mobile apps in the Google play store: an exploratory investigation

Authors:

Ivano Malavolta,

Stefano Ruberto,

Tommaso Soru,

Valerio TerragniAuthors Info & Claims

MOBILESoft '15: Proceedings of the Second ACM International Conference on Mobile Software Engineering and Systems

Pages 56 - 59

Published: 16 May 2015 Publication History

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Abstract

One of the most intriguing challenges in mobile apps development is its fragmentation with respect to mobile platforms (e.g., Android, Apple iOS, Windows Phone). Large companies like IBM and Adobe and a growing community of developers advocate hybrid mobile apps development as a possible solution to mobile platforms fragmentation. Hybrid mobile apps are consistent across platforms and built on web standards. How hybrid apps are performing in production settings is still highly debated, with limited objective evidence.

In this paper, we present the first empirical investigation into mobile hybrid apps involving a large number of mobile apps. Our goal is exploratory and we aim at identifying, analysing, and understanding the traits and distinctions of publicly available hybrid mobile apps within their real-life context. The study has been conducted by mining 11,917 free apps and their related metadata from the Google Play Store, and analyzing them from both a technical and end users' perception perspective.

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Cited By

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Martinez MTilevich E(2019)Two datasets of questions and answers for studying the development of cross-platform mobile applications using Xamarin frameworkProceedings of the 6th International Conference on Mobile Software Engineering and Systems10.5555/3340730.3340763(162-173)Online publication date: 25-May-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3340730.3340763
Biørn-Hansen AGrønli TGhinea G(2018)A Survey and Taxonomy of Core Concepts and Research Challenges in Cross-Platform Mobile DevelopmentACM Computing Surveys10.1145/324173951:5(1-34)Online publication date: 19-Nov-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3241739
Geiger FMalavolta IPascarella LPalomba FDi Nucci DBacchelli AZaidman AKamei YHill E(2018)A graph-based dataset of commit history of real-world Android appsProceedings of the 15th International Conference on Mining Software Repositories10.1145/3196398.3196460(30-33)Online publication date: 28-May-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3196398.3196460
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Hybrid mobile apps in the Google play store: an exploratory investigation

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Information

Published In

MOBILESoft '15: Proceedings of the Second ACM International Conference on Mobile Software Engineering and Systems

May 2015

194 pages

ISBN:9781479919345

General Chair:
Aharon Abadi
IBM Haifa Research Lab, Israel
,
Program Chairs:
Danny Dig
Oregon State University
,
Yael Dubinsky
IBM Haifa Research Lab, Israel

Publisher

IEEE Press

Publication History

Published: 16 May 2015

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MOBILESoft '15

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MOBILESoft '15: 2nd ACM International Conference on Mobile Software Engineering and Systems

May 16 - 17, 2015

Florence, Italy

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ICSE 2025

2025 IEEE/ACM 46th International Conference on Software Engineering

April 26 - May 3, 2025

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Martinez MTilevich E(2019)Two datasets of questions and answers for studying the development of cross-platform mobile applications using Xamarin frameworkProceedings of the 6th International Conference on Mobile Software Engineering and Systems10.5555/3340730.3340763(162-173)Online publication date: 25-May-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3340730.3340763
Biørn-Hansen AGrønli TGhinea G(2018)A Survey and Taxonomy of Core Concepts and Research Challenges in Cross-Platform Mobile DevelopmentACM Computing Surveys10.1145/324173951:5(1-34)Online publication date: 19-Nov-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3241739
Geiger FMalavolta IPascarella LPalomba FDi Nucci DBacchelli AZaidman AKamei YHill E(2018)A graph-based dataset of commit history of real-world Android appsProceedings of the 15th International Conference on Mining Software Repositories10.1145/3196398.3196460(30-33)Online publication date: 28-May-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3196398.3196460
Carvalho LFreire AGasparini IPiccolo LZaina LPereira R(2017)Native or Web-Hybrid Apps?Proceedings of the XVI Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3160504.3160511(1-10)Online publication date: 23-Oct-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3160504.3160511
Malavolta IProcaccianti GNoorland PVukmirović PGrundy JHalfond WBuhnova BAutili MMuccini H(2017)Assessing the impact of service workers on the energy efficiency of progressive web appsProceedings of the 4th International Conference on Mobile Software Engineering and Systems10.1109/MOBILESoft.2017.7(35-45)Online publication date: 20-May-2017
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Martinez MLecomte SGrundy JHalfond WBuhnova BAutili MMuccini H(2017)Towards the quality improvement of cross-platform mobile applicationsProceedings of the 4th International Conference on Mobile Software Engineering and Systems10.1109/MOBILESoft.2017.30(184-188)Online publication date: 20-May-2017
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Scoccia GMalavolta IAutili MDi Salle AInverardi PUchitel SOrso ARobillard M(2017)User-centric Android flexible permissionsProceedings of the 39th International Conference on Software Engineering Companion10.1109/ICSE-C.2017.84(365-367)Online publication date: 20-May-2017
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Mishra RChoudhury SChaki N(2017)TelePatchInnovations in Systems and Software Engineering10.1007/s11334-017-0292-313:4(251-259)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s11334-017-0292-3
Malavolta IFlynn LSillitti A(2016)Beyond native apps: web technologies to the rescue! (keynote)Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Mobile Development10.1145/3001854.3001863(1-2)Online publication date: 21-Oct-2016
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Malavolta I(2016)Web-based hybrid mobile appsProceedings of the International Conference on Mobile Software Engineering and Systems10.1145/2897073.2897133(241-242)Online publication date: 14-May-2016
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