Is it useful using WebView whole layout in native Android app?

Question

I am currently developing a native android app. My app has a lot of activities. I want to develop native android app. But in some case, I want to use a webview where the entire layout is just a webview. Not linear or relative or another layout, just a webview. All of the images and other things running in HTML. All of screen will run in HTML5.

So, I can partially transfer my app into iphone app or other platforms. This is the benefit of this way to me.

But I don't know. Is this way better? What will the performance be? What is the disadvantages of converting to an HTML5 app?

Can you explain?

Answer 1

There is a very good presentation about this very topic.

1. Performance: You are adding an additional layer in between, A webkit engine cannot always match native (and sometimes hardware accelerated) rendering performance.

2. Disadvantages: One is that the API use is limited, you can bind a page's JavaScript to Native code, but not all functionality is available.Though you might want to have a look at capabilities of Cordova project. Another is that emulating complex widgets via JavaScript will slow down the page.

3. Portability: Indeed is a great advantage, that's why PhoneGap and Cordova are popular. Though many like Facebook App etc have switched to native App for better performance.

The approach you require actually depends on your requirements. This may be my personal rant but IMHO: a markup can be only twisted so far, it can't out-perform industrial grade GUI programming setups as of yet.