With the introduction of a new cross-platform app way, one can focus on to strengthening the app performance instead of focussing on which app platform to utilize. Don’t be too surprised! Native cross-platform apps are possible now. As you would understand further, you can combine native and cross-platform ways of app development and amalgamate both their benefits into one.
When we have a number of mobile devices running on various OSs, businesses need to come up with apps that support multiple OSs and run on all devices including Android, iPhone, iPads and various others. In order to give the best to the clients, developers always find it challenging to choose between app developments. This will, however, make it easier for you as an app developer to develop a mobile app.
Native apps are platform-specific apps that interact with the features of a specific OS. Developing a native app means it is required to be built from the ground up and is written in the language supported by that platform or device. For example, Java for Android. The native app development somewhere doubles the work, time and costs involved. However, it also tends to offer highly-responsive user experience.
Cross-platform apps are developed for all platforms coherently at the same time. The same code can run on multiple Operating systems, i.e. Android, iOS, and Windows, with minor changes in the framework. Almost 75% of development time, cost and efforts get saved here. Now, the look and feel of the apps has also improved with modern technologies and frameworks, as much of the cross-platform app development today offers native-like performance.
As we are aware that Android and Apple systems utilize their own software development kits (SDKs) for developing the mobile applications, which when coded in their respective programming language pave a way to native apps. The major idea behind the development of a native cross-platform app is that the native SDK offers API (Application Programming Interface) through a different programming language, and isn’t supported by the particular OS; thus, creating a native cross-platform app.
Here, a third-party associate chooses any programming language and develops a uniform API over a native Software Development Kit. To make it native, the third-party provides an IDE in order to control the process of producing the native app bundle for Android and iOS from cross-platform. This way, the developer can take advantage of both the native app development and the cross-platform mobile app development.
Building Native Cross-platform apps
This isn’t difficult at all. Both UI and UX designs differ in Android and iOS. In order to form a unified GUI, which are difficult, developers can write web service calls and business logic using cross-platform libraries. Further, they can create GUI-related queries using platform-specific libraries. This allows not just code reuse but also a native user experience.
Two of the most important frameworks used for developing native cross-platform apps are:
React Native: Instead of constructing parallel code-bases in Java and Swift, Facebook’s React Native developers need to maintain only a single JavaScript code-base for both platforms.
NativeScript: Open-source NativeScript, created by Progress Software’s Telerik division, builds apps to run natively on Android and iOS, with language skills that developers already know, including Angular, TypeScript and JavaScript.
If you’re building a new app and can combine both of the worlds (native and cross-platform) together in one app using React Native or NativeScript, do it now. Seriously! You’ll love to see the results. Hire mobile app developers of Hvantage Technologies to build an ace project for your business.
