A Comprehensive Guide on Cross-platform Mobile App Development


The Rise Of Cross-Platform App Development

There are numerous reasons why your organization should build up its own application. Numerous organizations are creating applications to make it simpler for clients to cooperate with their image. Utilizing an application on a cell phone is a lot simpler than exploring to a website, all things considered. Organizations are additionally creating applications to make it simpler for their workers to be profitable.

Enabling your representatives to access and utilize organization information by means of gadgets outside of the workplace is commonly a brilliant thought (as long as you have the best possible security conventions set up) as this enables representatives to put in additional work when they have to, regardless of whether they are at home or out and about, for example, on the off chance that they're going for business related purposes. Truth be told, a great deal of organizations urge their representatives to carry their own gadgets to use at work also. This training is frequently alluded to as BYOD (Bring Your Own Device). Organizations regularly build up their own application explicitly for this reason.

The challenge in building up an application, regardless of whether it's for client use or representative use, lies in the way that individuals are not just utilizing a wide range of gadgets (workstations, cell phones, and tablets), however those gadgets are running on various working frameworks (Android and iOS being the primary two). This is something you'll have to think about when building up an application for your business and it's the reason numerous organizations are picking cross platform application Development, which fundamentally permits a solitary application to be useable over all stages regardless of what working framework is being utilized.

Cross Platform Vs Native App Development

With regards to creating applications, you truly have three alternatives. The main choice is to build up a web application. Web applications keep running on the web and are put away on remote servers. This implies it doesn't make a difference what you're utilizing (regardless of whether it's a cell phone, tablet, or PC), you ought to have the option to run the application as long as you open up the program that it keeps running on. The issue and it's a moderately enormous one–is that you must be online for a web application to run. In addition to the fact that you have to have an Internet association, however you can't download it from the application store, which means it must be found on the site it's offered on. In view of how seriously constraining this is, most organizations build up their applications utilizing either cross-platform development or Native application development.


Native application development includes building up your application for a particular working framework or stage. For instance, in the event that you need the application to chip away at Mac PCs, at that point you need to compose the application in Swift or Objective-C with the end goal for it to have the option to keep running on frameworks that utilization the iOS working framework. On the off chance that you need the application to keep running on cell phones that utilization iOS, you'll have to compose the application in Xcode. Building up the application for non-Apple PCs and cell phones, (for example, Android) will require diverse coding too.

In case you're just building up an application for a particular sort of framework, (for example, a PC or cell phone) and working framework, (for example, iOS or Android), at that point native application improvement is fine. In any case, on the off chance that you need your application to take a shot at various gadgets and working frameworks, you might need to consider cross-platform development. Applications made utilizing cross-platform development will keep running on numerous stages utilizing a solitary codebase, which implies that dissimilar to native application development, you won't need to build up the equivalent application on various occasions with the goal for it to work on various stages.
Superficially, it might appear picking between cross- platform app development and native application development is an easy decision. Is there any valid reason why you wouldn't have any desire to build up an application that takes a shot at all stages instead of an application that solitary takes a shot at one (or that expects you to build up the equivalent application on numerous occasions so as to work on more than one stage), all things considered? In any case, it merits jumping into the advantages and disadvantages of cross stage application advancement to settle on sure that the choice you make is the correct one.

Advantages

The following are the advantages of cross-platform development:
Reusable Code
When you write the code for an app using native development, it means that you have to write separate code for every platform (such as Xcode for iPhones and iPads, and Android Studio for Android mobile apps). With cross-platform development, the code you write the first time is reusable for every platform.
Maintainable Code
Whenever you update your app, you will only have to update your codebase once instead of having to update the code for every platform your app is used on. Once you update your codebase, all changes will be synced and reflected on every platform.
Convenient And Cost Efficient
Native app development requires you to know the programming language for each platform you want to develop the app for. You’ll only need to know a single programming language for cross-platform development, which is much more convenient. This also makes building the app more cost-efficient since there’s less work to be done as a result (which also means you don’t need several coding experts working on different versions of the same app).
Wider Market Reach
Restricting the use of your app to one platform means that you’re limiting your reach. If you’re developing a customer-facing app, you’ll want to have as big of a reach as possible. By making it accessible on all platforms through cross-platform development, you’ll have a much wider market reach.
Disadvantages
While the advantages to cross-platform development certainly stand out, there are a few drawbacks to keep in mind as well. These include the following:
Performance Issues
Even though your app can perform quite well when built for all platforms using cross-platform development, it’s important to keep in mind that it won’t perform as well as apps developed natively for specific platforms.
Lower Quality Graphics
Cross-platform development tends to result in graphics that aren’t as high quality as graphics used in apps that were developed natively. This is in part because you won’t have access to core OS graphics libraries. If your app relies heavily on graphics, you may want to reconsider cross-platform development.
Delayed Updates
One particularly inconvenient issue that you won’t really be able to get around is the fact that if an update is released for a specific platform, it can take a while for any changes or new features to be reflected in the cross-platform development tools you’re using.
Mediocre User Experience
Native apps are designed to run on specific platforms and therefore have better user experience than apps that were built using cross-platform development.  This is especially true if the function of your app depends on its ability to directly access the hardware of the user’s device.

Framework Tools To Develop Your Cross-Platform App

The following are some of the cross-platform app framework tools that are commonly considered to be of high quality and worth using:
React Native is the latest technology in native mobile app development solution for both iOS and Android platform. After the launch of this advanced technology, the enormous mobile app development industry is providing the maximum speed and efficiency at much affordable costs.
Actually, React Native is an innovative platform developed by Facebook and it helps in crafting the React Native Mobile Applications in JavaScript as it proposes the real native user interface. React Native Development is relatively basic, quick, effective and a user Interface focused, which makes the applications load quickly and gives a smoother feel.
Flutter
Flutter is a flexible, animated, and innovative framework utilized for the development of the next-gen apps for platforms like Android and iOS with a single codebase within record time.
The core concepts for Flutter are connecting and drawing. Flutter can be appropriately observed in applications that make use of the Camera, Geolocation, Network, and 3rd party SDKs. All of these attributes to the latest standards in cross-platform developments which can be experienced utilizing the flutter application development framework.
Flutter assist with altering existing gadgets or making new gadget. Its rich gadget library encourages you to pick and tweak it rapidly. Along with material structure and Widgets empower to create responsive applications with attractive and engaging UI.
Tips For Developing Cross-Platform Apps
Using a cross-platform development framework may be the way to go if you’re looking to develop an app that will accessible on different platforms. However, there’s a lot more to consider than just making sure your app will function on all platforms. The following are a few tips to help ensure that you develop an app that meets the unique needs of users on each platform:
Make It Attractive
The function of an app is obviously more important than how it looks, but this doesn’t mean that it’s aesthetic isn’t important. First of all, the look of your app can affect its function. An app that’s too visually flamboyant can make users overwhelmed by its use, after all. Secondly, an attractive app will make users more engaged. Last, but not least, the look of your app helps to strengthen your brand’s identity (it has to be consistent with your brand’s look as well, after all) and will help your app stand out from the many other similar apps that are on the market.
Use A Platform-Independent Technique
Even when building a cross-platform app, many developers fall into the trap of focusing on specific platforms, such as iOS or Android. They will end up testing the app on the platform that they use most frequently. However, this can result in the app functioning great on one platform while not as well on the other. Instead, build your app in the same way that you would build a web service. By using a platform-independent approach, your developers will be more inclined to focus on the performance results for both engines.
Test Your App
Because you’ve developed your app to be used on multiple platforms, it means that you need to test it to make sure it runs on all platforms properly. Don’t just assume that because it was created using a cross-platform development tool that if it works fine on one platform it will work fine on all platforms.
Focus On Your Users
Always keep your user in mind when developing an app, whether you’re developing it for a specific platform or for all platforms. If you lose track of your user’s needs during the development of an app, then the app’s functionality and user-friendliness will most likely suffer.
Deciding Which Platform Works Best For You
When it comes to developing an app for your business, there are a lot of things you’ll want to consider. Are you developing a customer-facing app or an app for your employees to use? Who is your audience? Is there a specific platform that your audience is using or do you want to build an app that can work on multiple platforms? Even choosing the framework tool requires some thought. For example, what kind of programming languages are your developers familiar with? What is your budget? What kind of functionality and features do you want your app to have? These are all questions that you will want to answer in order to properly plan out the development of your app.

Develop your cross-platform app today! Contact us for more details. We, at X-Byte Enterprise Solutions, help start-up and entrepreneur enthusiast deploys an effective revenue generating mobile app to etch success and multiply profits. 

Reach us on sales@xbytesolutions.com or +1 (832) 251 7311.




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