Multi-platform mobile application development provides the user experience and functionality of native apps with the multi-platform compatibility of mobile web apps. This approach provides the best of both worlds and has been gaining a lot of acceptance due to the trade-offs with native development and mobile web approaches. In today’s dynamic marketplace where the future is unclear, cross-platform apps provide a middle ground to achieve success for your mobile strategy.
In recent Mobile and Wireless news posted on Gartner Research, by 2018 more than 60 percent of Mobile Apps deployed will have used cross-platform development tools. The research states that enterprises are under extreme pressure from management and employees to develop and deploy mobile applications in order to accommodate the BYOD movement as well as increase customer engagement.
Ken Dulaney, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner said that – “Mobility has always been a separate topic for IT professionals, but it is now influencing mainstream strategies and tactics in the wider areas of technology enablement and enterprise architectures.”
Why opt for Cross-Platform Mobile App Development Services?
Enterprises today have to think across multiple devices and platforms for any mobile app they want to create. By opting for cross-platform apps, they will be able to not only achieve greater market penetration, but also get other benefits such as lower time to market on all supported platforms. By opting for hybrid app development architecture, enterprises can be assured better code maintainability because of a single code base. These apps are generally written in ‘ web languages ’ – HTML, Javascript and CSS – though now platforms using other popular languages like C# for .NET have also come along. These are then either compiled into native code and then deployed (aka Appcelerator) or they have native wrappers around them for deployment on iOS, Android and Windows Phone devices.
Enterprise apps nowadays need to have their smartphone apps leverage location information, notification systems, mapping capabilities and even on-device hardware such as the camera. The latest multi-platform mobile development tools now support hardware of various mobile brands to cater to these needs. However companies should also weigh out the pros and cons of each platform before deciding the right platform for them.
The main advantages of cross platform application development
There are numerous tools and frameworks available in the industry today to build best of breed cross-platform apps. Some of the popular ones are listed below:
ReactNative - It is one of the most widely used app development platforms by enterprises. React does not provide any concept of a built-in container for the province. You can use EcmaScript 6, Require JS, and Browserify modules which we can utilize through ReactJS-di or Babel to inject dependencies automatically.
Xamarin – It is one of the most widely used app development platforms by enterprises. It helps build native cross platform applications with 75% code sharing across iOS, Android & Windows platforms. Xamarin Developers use C# to build apps. Xamarin enables developers run automated tests for mobile apps and monitor app performance.
PhoneGap / Apache Cordova – It is basically a web application which is packaged in a native application container where each operation is executed by JavaScript through device-level APIs. PhoneGap developers have freedom to use the platform using HTML, JavaScript and CSS.
Appcelerator’s Titanium – It provides a unified JavaScript API which can be integrated with the native platform and allows access to all the features of the platform. Titanium developers write JavaScript codes and utilize the Alloy MVC framework for reusing the native UI components, improving performance for the cross platform app development.
Other tools include Sencha, Adobe Air all of which have their own advantages and disadvantages.
It is important to partner with the right cross platform app development company to ensure they develop your apps inline with the industry’s best practices. Not only should they have experience in developing multi-platform apps, but should also have experience in developing enterprise-grade mobile applications to ensure you get the best ROI for your investment.
