There is currently much controversy over which mobile apps are better -- native applications or mobile cloud applications. To examine this controversy, it is important to look at the differences between developing mobile cloud apps and native apps.

Bill Claybrook just does that in a thorough, expert story on SearchCloudApplications.com.

It should be more like Mobile Web Apps vs Native apps. Even native apps can be Mobile Cloud Apps if they use Cloud APIs for their various functionality like Data Sync, Push Notifications, Location, User Management etc. 

Overall the article is good except the part about security. Native Apps are quite secure. If they use the right tools they can have the data at rest encrypted and wiped in case its lost or stolen. Its a good tradeoff for getting the best user experience including complete access even when offline.

Thanks

Sohil

CEO, OpenMobster

Open Source Mobile Backend As a Service (MBaaS)

I'd agree with the title being misleading and even go further. There is a great big gray area between "web mobile" and "native". There are many variations.  The main "differences" are deployment, dev tools and feature access.