Apps that can be used on the Mobile Devices fall into the following main categories:

Web Apps:

Web Apps are applications that can be accessed through a browser (like Google Chrome on Android or Safari on iOS) only over the internet. 

A web app does not reside 'natively' on the mobile device. A web app also doesn’t take up storage on the user’s device.These apps cannot be downloaded from the app stores like App Store or Google Play store.

These apps are built using web technologies like HTML, CSS, JavaScript etc. hence are not usually device/platform specific. Web apps are essentially websites that look like native apps (see below) but instead of being installed on the mobile device, the user creates a bookmark to that page (or opens a specific URL to access the app).

The disadvantages of web apps accessed from mobile devices are:

• They are usually much slower than native apps
• Web apps are less interactive and intuitive than native apps
• Cannot leverage device utilities (like GPS, cameras, sensors, etc.,)
• Web apps generally cannot be used offline, i.e., without internet connectivity.

Native Apps

Native Apps are applications that live on the device, can be accessed using its icon. Most of the mobile apps are native apps because of the following advantages:

• Native apps are very fast and responsive because they are built for that specific platform
• They have the best performance
• They are distributed in app stores
• They are more interactive, intuitive and run much smoother in terms of user input and output
• Native allows developers to access the full feature set of their given platform with whatever performance optimizations the native system has. For example, the apps can access GPS, cameras, sensors like accelerometer, gyrosensor, etc.
• Internet connection is not required, although it depends on the functionality
• Overall better user experience. To the user, the flow is more natural as they have specific UI standards for each platform

They are built for specific platforms and are written in languages that the platform accepts, for example, Swift and Objective-C for iOS apps and Java for native Android apps. Both Apple and Google provide app developers with their own development tools, interface elements, and SDK.

Hybrid Apps:

A "hybrid" app is essentially a combination of a "native" app, and a "web" app. Users can install it on their device like a native app, but it has some or more functionalities that actually works like a web app. Like native apps, these reside on your phone, can be downloaded from app store, can integrate with device's storage/file system. Also, like web apps, these need to be accessed over a network. 

Another way of looking at hybrid apps is that it can be considered as a web app built inside a native app. But in this case, the browser is embedded within the native app user interface. A well-written hybrid app shouldn’t look or behave any differently than its native equivalent. Some popular examples would be mobile versions of eCommerce sites like Amazon, Netflix, Twitter, etc.

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