For most apps, cross platform like Flutter or RN is the best choice. For apps highly bind on the hardware, or need better performance, usually native is better. But for vibe coding or harness coding today, if workload is not the problem, native is usually a better choice, it allows you do different thing on different platform.

There's nothing like having a locally installed program that has no internet dependencies for reliability. There's a reason machine shops still have that one PC running MS-DOS 5.0 in an emulator. The tool built in Tk!Solver version 1 in 1982 can't be easily replaced, and it's required to compute bevel gear generator setups.

Changing anything in the setup might cause gears to come out wrong, and cost thousands of dollars in scrap, and the loss of a customer.

When you have a locally installed program, offline, you're pretty much immune to most of the troubles of the technical world.

For users, ease of use.

For companies, ease of additional tracking.

It really isn't some _deep_ thing. Users like to be able to quickly access the content they want to consume. Companies want data. Apps fulfill both of these requirements.

A lot of people might say "latency" or "security": both are valid points but...

What about the Data? on a native app I usually can SAVE data wherever I want on my device.

I can even save it or load it from external storage like... a usb thumbdrive.

And if my connection goes down I sill can use it (unless I have a license/activation software that needs to be connected to the internet).

I think the divide is pretty clear.

If the app needs connectivity for data, and is just text/images/video, then yes, it should be a web app. e.g. news sites, social media, forums, etc. (It's a site, not an app).

If an app needs be able to work offline, on local files and data, then it should be native. e.g. office apps, image/video editors, maps, CAD, etc.

There's a grey area in between, but usually it's pretty obvious.

On macOS and iOS, I prefer native apps because Apple gives these apps a bunch of extras in terms of keyboard shortcuts and functionality.

Non-native apps that are web views don't get this functionality unless the developer properly hooks it or mimics it. They rarely get this right.

That said, I'm not sure of the current state of Flutter and RN. They resolve to OS native controls, so theoretically they should support these types of base functionalities, correct?

You get access to more APIs specific to the native platform, the looks and feel is far better (I can easily see when an app isn't a native iOS app - e.g., Liquid Glass is awesome), and the tool ecosystem (e.g., Xcode is specifically built for Apple Apps).

Today I was using Jira and had to wait for the text in what should be a static dropdown menu to populate. It sat there with a bunch of placeholder boxes for a good 30 seconds. This has never happened to me with a native app.

Why should restaurants and supermarkets exist when you can eat only porridge and eggs? Why should bicycles exist when you can walk?

Some people prefer something better and are willing to pay for it.

Because human beings are irrational and want "apps". I have numerous examples of native apps that are just wrappers around the web app performing extremely well (massively increasing conversion rates, revenue, etc) over the existing PWA.

As I see/understand it, there are only "native apps" (because native machine code is the only type of data computer can execute). There is also only one program running (OS, not counting bootloaders/firmwares), that reads executable files (e.g. for webbrowser, python) and then executes the parts of native machine instructions in it, and then programs can also run (but usually in more limited way) "computer code", that modifies the behavior of parent program (be it webbrowser/python etc.). Then the discussion probably goes to what is the difference between a "program/code" and "document" (program's file format, content state), and there are spectrum of static to dynamic content.

"Non-native" code performance is naturally one factor to consider, but access to freedom of computing is another. If/When we are already decided to stack programs running in browsers/mobile OS's, we have locked the freedom to computing on those stacks - yor code is not anymore in control, because the parent programs control how your program can behave. An in the name of security, access to parent program features might be denied or are behind paywall/insider-agreements.

Access to your data and programs is also important factor to consider. If you don't have your own data on your own computer/memory, you have nothing. Only expectations of accessing. But then the discussion goes to responsibility and self-sufficiency, so you must take responsibility for backups etc.

Another point to consider is non-native remote apps are easy way to force subscription-type of payments.

IMHO, for Android and IOS, Flutter is solid enough to implement apps which are near native ones in terms of performance and "look & feel"

Native apps are not needed unless you want want performance and need to extract all the juice your hardware offers. Only AAA video games come to mind.

I believe it's for Data Collection and workloading somewhat can be expensive because of a lot of users rendering server side. side and went to AWS or Google Cloud infrastructure. And then we also have already, like, you know, passionate about it up on the edges. That makes sense. Like, keep going up. Breathe down, load in to people's internet data on their phone they don't like. Why my Google Keyboard started 500Mb+ Cache and 200Mb+ of UserData. I switched to Fido.

Native app vs what? A web app?

Performance.

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