Digital revolution is progressing at a swift pace empowering the future of global marketplaces, industries, society, and economy. New promising technologies and appealing mobile apps are appreciably changing the way we work and live in the current scenario. Mobility is becoming an important part of each application and digital products no matter what is the size of a company. All types of organizations be it an enterprise or a start-up have started taking into account the mobile first approach to stay ahead of the overall market competition. Today, organizations are aiming to hook up to a wider target audience through an engaging app that runs effortlessly on numerous mobile platforms. So, having cross-platform mobile app development services has become an integral part of their business strategy.
Why Build Cross-Platform Apps
Though some mobile app developers may have a preference to have native app other might believe that building a cross-platform application makes more sense as it is device independent and operates on multiple platforms. With newer devices, versions, platforms, operating systems, the companies are getting puzzled whether to select a cross-platform app or a native app. It has always been a resist for the developers and companies to choose the best development approach as of them have their own benefits and disadvantages.
Utilizing Cross-Platform Mobile Apps
Cross-platform mobile apps are built utilizing an intermediate language which is not native to the operating system of the device. This interprets that some or the complete code can be easily shared transversely on different platforms like across iOS and Android.
Cross-platform apps are different to HTML5 hybrid apps as hybrid apps usually incorporate a mix of native app and mobile app concepts. Cross-platform apps are built with Appcelerator, Xamarin, NativeScript and React Native.
The positive sides of developing a cross-platform mobile application are that their code can be shared across diverse versions of the apps and devices probably ranging from 75% to 85% as a whole. The User Interface (UI) is rendered utilizing the ‘native’ controls so that the overall performance can be as swift as that of the native apps.
Developing a cross-platform app enables the developers to build an app using a solitary language for scripting which majorly includes CSS, JavaScript, and HTML. It boosts the productivity and speeds up application development process cycle to provide a higher quality app that works on any Android, iOS or a Windows device.
Significant Benefits of Developing a Cross-platform Mobile Application
Reusable code
Cross-platform mobile application development easies the job of updating, maintaining and finally deploying the code with the advantages of eliminating recurring tasks. Rather than writing a code from scratch every time for similar action mobile app developers can now straightforwardly reuse the codes on the different platforms.
Affordable
Developing a cross-platform mobile app turns out to be much reason for mobile app development companies as it works on numerous platforms and drives the process through a single codebase. Companies can get an app without spending much on the development of tools, resources or technologies for a meticulous development ecosystem. Additionally, the same development professionals can be driven to work on a range of diverse platforms, rather having a devoted team for each one like we have in the present native scenario.
Timely Delivery
Cross-platform framework drives and uses the cohesive codebase that empowers businesses to quicken the mobile app development and timely delivery to the customers.
Straightforward Deployment
Most of the framework provides an assortment of modules and extension that impeccably integrate with other different tools to enhance the overall functionality and looks. It turns swifter for the app developers to deploy and update codes to operate on major platforms. In addition, the most up-to-date updations to the application get effortlessly synced across the platforms and diverse devices.
Maintains Uniformity
One of the most imperative considerations for any app or software is its User Experience. The solitary codebase utilized for building a cross-platform application assists in maintaining the UX and evenness of the app across the different platforms.
HTML5 Hybrid Mobile Apps
HTML5 hybrid mobile apps are also cross-platform applications but provide the UI in an embedded web browser smartly managing HTML, CSS and JavaScript. HTML5 hybrid apps are built with Ionic Framework, Cordova, Trigger.IO, and Telerik system platforms. Their code can be shared amid diverse versions of the applications across devices.
The positives of Hybrid Mobile Application Development incorporates lesser development time as building the interior part of the application is done using the latest web technologies. Libraries like AngularJS, Ember, PaperJS, and React are used for web development. The center of the application can be well-run without going through the AppStore.
Best Tools for Building a Cross-Platform Mobile App
The mobile marketplace is enormously fragmented due to diverse devices with a mixture of programming languages, interfaces, and available SDKs. So, building an app for these different platforms is a demanding task. Some of the popular cross-platform mobile app development platforms include React Native, Xamarin, NativeScript, Kony, Appcelerator, PhoneGap, and Sencha Touch.
React Native is built on React, Facebook’s JavaScript library utilized for creating UI’s. Xamarin of Microsoft uses C# code base to build a sturdy cross-platform mobile application for Windows, Android, and iOS. NativeScript is a modern open source framework for creating native iOS, Android and Windows mobile apps utilizing JavaScript. Kony is used to creating mobile web, native as well as hybrid mobile apps for tablets, smartphones, desktops, and kiosks.
Further, Appcelerator’s Titanium enables developers to reuse codes while building hybrid apps, iOS, Android, BlackBerry, and HTML5. PhoneGap is a free tool that enables naive developers to code their apps utilizing HTML5, CSS and JavaScript. It develops apps for iOS, Android, BlackBerry and Windows platforms. Sencha Touch is a principal cross-platform mobile web app structure based on MVC style architecture, HTML5 and JavaScript which help creates engaging and flexible apps with adaptive layouts, smoother scrolling, and fluid animation functionality.
Key Takeaways
The cross-platform development approach has been extensively acknowledged by diverse stakeholders across the global industry and marketplaces. However, an intelligent move is to analyze the assortment of factors like customer demographics, the level of customer’s engagement with the application, different types of mobile devices and platforms used, to decide if a cross-platform solution is a precise selection.
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