Native application development involves developing the application on a native mobile platform, which can be Android, iOS or Windows Phone. Thus to target multiple platforms, a separate application is developed for each platform. Developing a native application requires specific programming language for example, Android/Java is used for Android, Objective C/Swift is used for iOS and C# is used for Windows Phone applications development.

It also requires platform specific integrated development environments (IDEs). Android Studio is the officially used IDE for Android applications development, Xcode is used for iOS and Microsoft Visual Studio is used for developing applications for Windows Phone.

The NAD approach is the most common approach adopted by the developers. The main advantage of native applications is the high performance, full access to the hardware, and rich user experience. Disadvantages of the NAD approach include increased cost and time for development and maintenance.