We will discuss the problem, symptoms and remedies for healthy app development across operating systems A.K.A Cross Platform App Development – Importance, Factors, Functionality!
Cross-platform app development frameworks saves time, money, and resources for the businesses. It makes it reach a wider audience and improves their market share. Using a single codebase also makes maintenance and updates faster and easier.
Which features make this app development form useful?
Cross Platform Apps are not always responsive or optimized for specific platforms, which leads to slower loading times. The capability to access the platform-specific features is also limited. If these two limitations are handled adequately, web and mobile app developers get to relish the advantages of cross – platform app development, which are as follows:
| Reusable Code | Easy to update | Improves brand awareness | Increases user base | Eliminates the need to hire new developers for different platforms |
| Developers use a single codebase that runs on multiple platforms, instead of writing unique code for each platform. This simplifies the development process and saves time. | Updates to the codebase get synced and deployed across all platforms and devices, which is much easier than updating multiple codebases. | Cross-platform design ensures brand identity and awareness across OS’s. | Apps developed using cross-platform frameworks are accessible across multiple platforms, so that businesses reach more users and increase revenue. | Businesses use resources that are commonly available to all developers, instead of hiring a separate team for each platform. |
| Reduced costs | Faster development | Larger audience | Wider reach |
| Companies save 30–40% by avoiding the need for multiple development teams and codebases. | Developers focus on one project, leading to quicker deployment and updates. | Cross-platform apps reach 98% of the mobile device market. | Businesses avoid the challenges of low brand visibility and declining sales. |
Frameworks and Tools That Facilitate Cross-Platform/Hybrid App Development
Web and mobile app development companies consider project’s needs, team skills, and the framework’s stability while picking hybrid frameworks.
- Flutter: It is used to build native apps with custom UIs, and also apps for web, Fuchsia, Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, and Windows. The use of (1) DART, (2) customizable user interfaces, (3) readymade widgets, (4) hot reloading, (5) native performance, (6) Skia engine, (7) device widgets and (8) web browser technology, (9) support for IDE’s and code editors, and (10) large developer community fuels Flutter’s growth across cross platform app development.
- .NET MAUI or Xamarin framework: It is free, open source and based on C#. It includes MAUI project templates, XAML for defining UI and layouts, styles and theming for UX/UI customization, hot reload, and device APIs for accessing device-specific features, such as camera, geolocation, and sensors. It supports (1) Model-View-Controller (MVC), (2) Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM), and (3) Model-View-Presenter (MVP).
- Ionic: This framework has predefined user interface components for building high quality apps. It features (1) native device plugins; (2) a library of mobile-optimized UI components, animations, navigation, and gestures; (3) built-in support for JavaScript frameworks; (4) Hardware-accelerated transitions and touch-optimized gestures; (5) a welcoming community that regularly contributes pull requests and the Ionic team ships bug fixes and new releases. Ionic uses modern UI toolkit for creating single page applications and progressive web apps, streamlining development, reducing time to market, and facilitating easy deployment on Android and iOS platforms.
- Nodejs: Node.js is being used for developing frontend as well as the backend of any application. Its (5) lightweight and (6) event-driven nature makes it suitable for microservices architectures and handling concurrent connections efficiently. Node.js isn’t just a single framework but a complete ecosystem that encompasses – (1) Express.js, (2) Nest.js, (3) Koa.js, (4) Hapi.js, (5) Meteor.js, (6) Socket.IO, (7) LoopBack, (8) Adonis.js; Express.js is good for smaller projects, while NestJS is better for large, complex applications. Meteor.js or Socket.IO offer real time features. Express.js is easy to learn. Express.js and NestJS have large communities.
There are several other frameworks used for developing apps across platforms like React Native, Sencha Touch, PhoneGap, Solar 2d, Appcelerator Titanium, NativeScript (etc) that are extensively used for development.
Conclusive
Cross-platform app development companies use a single codebase to build apps for multiple platforms, like Android and iOS. This approach is more cost-effective and efficient than traditional methods that require separate apps for each platform.
Cross-platform app development frameworks are being used by web app development companies to create applications that work on multiple mobile operating systems, reducing development time and costs. The updated information remains same across all platforms and devices. Cross-platform apps deliver a consistent user experience across multiple devices, which improves user satisfaction and loyalty.
