Developing Applications: Cross-Platform Development

When it comes to mobile app development, there are different platforms that one needs to develop apps for (Android & Apple). Normally, apps for these different platforms need to be built separately as both kind of development needs a different operating system. But, if a developer wants to code universally for both kind of devices at the same time, cross platform app development is the way to go!

Enterprise App Development  

Whether you are looking to develop and create applications for enterprise or consumer use, one of the major difficulties one faces is the development of different applications for different devices. While some companies may have the budget to hire two or even three different teams for app development, simultaneous development for different platforms still have a certain cost.

There’s the natural cost of hiring talented developers, but another important problem is the fact that neither the codebase is shareable. At the end of the day, you will have two different codebases which must be individually maintained forever!

Disadvantages of Separate Codebases

If you have been maintaining different codebases for separate platforms, these are just some of the issues that you are bound to face.

1. The Cost: Developing and maintaining different apps for different platforms is far more expensive.
2. Skills: If you have one team, developing, programming and maintaining different applications will require high levels of skills and knowledge of 2-3 programming languages.
3. Uniformed Outlook: Each platform comes with its own set of widgets, features and customizations. It is highly likely that your apps will not be able to look and feel as uniform across various platforms, if you have been developing them separately.

At this point, we’ll suggest that you contact an app development company; people who are experts in this or if you’re just starting over with your application, cross-platform development is the answer.

What is Cross-Platform Development?

Cross-platform mobile development is basically the development of software applications that are compatible with multiple mobile operating systems.

Cross-platform development provides the developers with the flexibility to build applications across various platforms with a universal language like JavaScript. Once developed, this code can then be exported to various smartphone platforms. There are basically two ways to do that:

1. Native App Cross-Platform Development: With tools like React Native, Xamarin, or NativeScript, one can develop an app that still uses native APIs which allows for brilliant performance across all platforms, without having to code for each separately.
2. Hybrid App Cross-Platform Development: Hybrid app development is one step lower than native app development as it depends on a built-in web browser and HTML 5, CSS, and Javascript to render the app. The app will need to be coded separately and then rendered on the smartphone by an internal web browser. This practice can work well for simple and smaller apps but in more complex apps, performance would be a problem.

Advantages of Cross-Platform App Development

There are quite a few advantages of cross-platform app development, some of them are:

1. Lowered costs as there is no need to develop for two separate codebases.
2. Quicker resolution of bugs as they’ll only be needed to be fixed once.
3. Reduced time to market as developing one app instead of two or three takes less time.
4. Increased reach for customers and you’ll be able to target more people which will result in a higher ROI.
5. In the case of apps used by employees, cross platform apps can help you achieve quicker deployment and adoption at a much lower cost.