Native app

A native app is built specifically for one mobile platform using that platform's own tools — Swift for iOS, Kotlin for Android. It has full access to the device and matches the platform's conventions exactly, because it is using them rather than imitating them.

It remains the right answer where performance, device access or feel are the product: demanding graphics, sustained background processing, deep use of camera, sensors or platform integrations.

The cost is that two platforms mean two codebases, two teams or one team context-switching, and every feature built twice. That arithmetic is what makes cross-platform development attractive to most projects that do not need what native buys.