When it comes to showing off your brand, connecting with users and delivering a better mobile experience, nothing delivers like a native app. As opposed to using a web app or displaying your web content in a mobile browser, native apps:

• Run on a specific hardware platform and operating system
• Can access the complete range of hardware and functionality of the user’s mobile device
• Can be downloaded from popular app stores like the Apple App Store or Google Play Store

While there’s no question that native apps are the best option for engaging and retaining users on mobile devices, they can be very costly and time consuming to develop, deploy and maintain. But with Median, you can convert your existing website to a fully functional native app with only minimal web development, saving time and expense in the process. Read on to learn about six reasons you should choose Median to launch a stunning, immersive native app.

How do I get started building an app with Median?

When you use Median to create your native app, all you need to get started is your website URL! Within minutes, the Median online App Studio will build a native app that displays your web content. From there, you can choose how far you want to take your app:

• Create a basic app with minimal configuration that you can publish immediately
• Add native functionality and access mobile device native features by adding simple JavaScript to your website
• Add Native Plugins to integrate advanced device functionality and third-party vendor SDKs

Why should I consider using Median for building my app?

Whether you’re looking to launch an app quickly to test a business idea, or in need of an enterprise-level support and maintenance plan, Median can provide the services you need.

Typically, developing a native app for both iOS and Android is very time consuming and requires businesses to hire additional staff or engage external developers. Plus, building apps for both Apple iOS and Android demands effectively double the effort and requires different skill sets. Not only can this mean lengthy development times, it also means high development costs. 

In 2023, designing a full-featured native app for both iOS and Android devices from scratch can cost your business tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars. This doesn’t even factor in the time and costs associated with maintaining and managing these apps to ensure ongoing compatibility. With Median, you can leverage your existing web content and design and create a fully functional native app in a fraction of the time, and at a fraction of the cost.

Introducing Median's App Studio

Both Apple and Google have numerous design rules, guidelines and best practices to follow when designing brand elements for your app. Rather than negotiate this process on your own, Median’s online app builder makes it easy to put a unique, brand-oriented stamp on your app using custom app icons, an app splash screen, and in-app theme colors. Simply upload your image files, our services automatically creates all required icon sizes and splash screen configurations will be automatically created for both iOS and Android. You can also easily specify the colors to use for your app’s top status bar, button labels and other in-app user interface components.

For users, the primary benefit of native apps is the fact that they can access the hardware and functionality of the mobile devices, leading to a wide range of app features and possibilities. Typically, web wrapper apps do not provide full native functionality and adding native features to such an app requires extensive development in iOS and Android native code. 

Get access to an expansive library of plugins

When you use Median, you gain access to an extensive library of native plugins that help you harness the power of native functionality. These native plugins require minimal web development and JavaScript to integrate. You’ll find native plugins that will allow your app to:

• Send push notifications to users 
• Enable social login 
• Access a device’s camera, GPS, microphone and media player 
• Enable in-app purchases, video chat, offline downloads
• And much, much more

Once you’ve added these native plugins to your app, you can integrate with them using the Median JavaScript Bridge — an API that allows your website to communicate with and control your app. After integrating with your website, you’ll have a fully functional native app with all the features and functionality you need to deliver an exceptional user experience.

Need help publishing your app? Median can do it for you

Properly preparing and publishing your app to both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store is a highly involved, multi-step process that’s important to get right. Your app can be rejected by the app stores based on their guidelines. So, you’ll need to prepare app store listing metadata and app to ensure it will be easy for users to find and download your app. 

At Median, we make app publishing as easy and as seamless as possible. Our Publishing Team helps customers publish apps to the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, as well as private app stores. We’ve published over 3,500 apps with a 97% approval rate to the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Our team will complete the publishing process end-to-end, including the preparation of all app store metadata and screenshots.

After your app is published, ongoing compatibility updates and regular maintenance is a must to ensure compatibility with the latest iOS and Android releases and to add additional features. If you’re planning on launching a native app for both iOS and Android, this ongoing maintenance and updates can be time consuming and costly.

When you convert your website to a native app with Median, we maintain the core iOS and Android app codebases so you don’t have to. We ensure your apps remain compatible with future iOS/Android devices and operating system updates. which enables you to maintain your apps without requiring any in-house iOS or Android developers.

Ready to launch your own native app in minutes?

If you’re ready to build your own stunning, immersive, highly functional native app, without having to negotiate long, costly development timelines and managing multiple codebases, try Median’s App Studio. Enter your web URL into our Online App Studio and build an app to test and evaluate for free!

Want to learn more about our plugins?

Launch a full-feature native app without native development!

Plugin library