Evolution of Our Hybrid Technology Architecture for Mobile Applications

We present a comprehensive overview of the hybrid technology used in our mobile client, tracing its evolution from the initial 2014 implementation aimed at rapid product iteration and native‑like user experience to the current multi‑platform strategy.

The early goals were to achieve web‑style development efficiency while delivering native performance, prompting an analysis of existing frameworks such as Phongap, AppCan, and Wex5, which ultimately led us to build a custom solution centered on bridgeJS for web‑native interaction.

The core architecture includes bridgeJS for JavaScript‑to‑native calls, a middle‑layer API to achieve full front‑back separation, incremental packaging and deployment via a zip‑based build system, and the use of AngularJS (later React) for a lightweight single‑page application framework. Build tools evolved from Grunt to Gulp, and packaging is handled with zip scripts.

As the hybrid approach proved successful, we standardized resources, enforced guidelines (e.g., SVG over images, resource granularity), and optimized loading through pre‑loading mechanisms, significantly improving front‑end performance and supporting a growing number of projects.

In 2015 we introduced the "N‑in‑1" concept, aiming to reuse a single front‑end codebase across multiple platforms (app, touch sites, WeChat, etc.) with unified UED standards, reducing development and maintenance costs while enhancing user experience.

The technical implementation maintains front‑back separation via middle‑layer APIs, leverages native controls through JavaScript wrappers, and serves shared resources directly from the client when possible to reduce latency. The front‑end stack remains lightweight, with options like AngularJS, React, Zepto, and a modular routing system.

Future work focuses on efficiency: improving the incremental update mechanism from file‑compare + zip to binary + 7z to reduce package size and bandwidth, and continuously refining the core technology to support rapid business iteration.