A few years back, software developers used to assume that choosing cross-platform development possesses unwanted risks and the clients along with the organizations who wish to have a mobile application they clearly benefited from the development of a specific mobile platform. It was a default mindset that cross-platform product is less user friendly in terms of reliability, design and difficulty. Progressively, cross-platform development tools progressed and fortunately changed the mindset of everyone.

Whether to build a cross-platform application or go for a native mobile application, still, it’s the most challenging questions for an entrepreneur to choose from, however; as per the current scenario there is more value seen in cross-platform products.

So, what is the first thing that comes to your mind when read the cross platform mobile application?

The cross – platform application works with a single code base, but it works on multiple operating systems. Let me get you through two types of cross-platform application:

1.”Native” cross-platform apps

Native applications are what you will usually take into consideration, when you think about application. Most of the applications in your smartphone are native apps. Unlike web apps they are written in Javascript, native applications are written the languages that the platform supports. For example, objective-C or Swift is used to write native iOS applications, Java is used to write native Android applications and C# for the Windows phone applications. Xamarin, NativeScript and React Native are the most common examples of cross-platform languages.

2. Hybrid HTML5 cross-platform apps

Hybrid application, developers consider it as a baby of native and web application; however, it is a web application on the inside. Hybrid applications are built with Javascript, CSS, HTML and run in something called WebView, a simplified browser to your application. There is a specific reason to choose Hybrid, like if you have a million-dollar application idea and you are not sure about whether people will like it or not, then the hybrid is a way to have something in your hands as quickly as possible. In the startup world, it is known as a minimum viable product – MVP.

Cross-platform Application: Benefits for product owners as well as software programmers:

1. Cost-effective

Cross-platform applications are considerably cheaper to develop and easy to maintain due to the number of factors. If the cross-platform applications are accurately architect, then it is possible to use half of their code across platforms.

Development of cross-platform application also ensures lower expenses in terms of quality assurance. The cross – platform application has UI basics, which is specific to each platform along with a common code base also contains application’s general business logic. Development of a cross-platform application cannot help you with the potential UI bugs, but it means that debugging takes a small amount of time because you are required to fix bugs that are in the common codebase once. Unit tests can be written only for the common code that saves time and resource for testing.

2. One product, One team and Two Platforms

Product owners who wish to have a cross-platform application need one team of programmers who are trained enough to deal with one set of technologies.

Modern cross-platform application advantages for the end user:

1. Ideal for prototyping

React Native is an ideal choice for prototyping as it allows for faster development and release of an app that perfectly works on both platforms at the same time. Many product owners wish to release their product at the earliest in the market before somebody else seizes the opportunity. React Native helps to hit the market without sacrificing the quality of your code as well as end product.

2. UX uniformity

An enjoyable and smooth UI is significant for any application. And consistency is one of the critical characteristics of a well-designed UX. All I want to explain is users should be able to recognize UI elements and foresee their interactions across various platforms. The cross-platform development tools let the designers and developers build the uniform UX that app users appreciate.

3. Greater reach and easier marketing

Mobile apps serve tools for promotion and also offers a sales channel for various businesses. Cross-platform applications are very much for a wider reach: by developing a single application you can tap into both the platform’s target audience markets at the same time.

Which is the best cross-platform development tool?

Development of cross-platform mobile application allows developers to code for once and deploy an application across multiple platforms. Let me get you through the list of cross-platform mobile app development tools and platforms that provides faster development and deployment.

React Native

A very special thanks to Facebook for building React and presenting to the world as an open source JavaScript library. The development of React started with hackathon back in 2013. React is the supreme example of a technology that programmers have created for themselves and when they were looking for a tool to combine the best things about mobile development with agility and the power of native React environment. React Native’s origin resulted in a huge keen people’s community investing in the framework development.

React Native makes use of various blocks to comprise rich mobile applications for both iOS and Android using a common JavaScript codebase. React Native let the programmers to see their code and its implementations on real mobile screens to each other in real time. React Native provides development tools for application packaging and debugging that saves time.

Xamarin

It’s a Microsoft-owned cross-platform development tool that makes use of uses a C# codebase to build cross-platform mobile apps for Android, iOS, and Windows devices. Xamarin lets you share code on multiple platforms and it has a cloud service that let the mobile app testing on various devices. Making use of Xamarin, programmers can use popular Portable Class Libraries like Json.NET, SQLite or ReactiveUI on every platform. The Xamarin Component Store offers let you have a free access to high-quality components that can be added directly to the application from the IDE. These components include numbers of web service APIs, controls and more and also enable integration with most popular back-end solutions such as Salesforce, Microsoft Azure as well as integration with powerful security features including encryption and authentication.

NativeScript

A Bulgarian software development company created NativeScript and for that credit goes to Telerik. For over a long-time period, row NativeScript has been chosen by the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Mobile Application Development Platforms.

The NativeScript framework lets the programmers use pure JavaScript to develop native mobile applications that run on major mobile platforms like iOS, Android and Windows. With NativeScript the application’s UI stack is built on the native platform using native components that allows for an almost native UX. Recently, it has become a latest trend to write cross-platform mobile application with Angular2 and TypeScript.

Why do we prefer working with React Native?

People who are experienced in JavaScript for them it is easy to work with React Native. Developers can easily switch to React Native, from Swift or Java knowing certain UI elements and platform APIs. The React Native library contains debugging, Flexbox CSS styling and support for deploying either to the Google Play Store or the App store.

React Native is UI focused and thus it is highly responsive. The application written with React Native will have a smooth feel and quick load times.

React Native relies completely on native controls. React Native programmers write a routine React-based application; however, the app has native controls that results in smooth performance on a native feel and UI. React Native use less memory and loads fast. This is what makes React Native-based application a good cross-platform choice.

React Native let the programmers reuse code. React Native is a perfect fit for any project, if the product owner wants to have an augmented reality application, then they already can have it without developing a new application from scratch.

React Native supports native modules. As it allows you to use third-party native libraries to implement various features including encryption, geolocation, specific calculations and payment system integrations.

Cross-platform development approach has been globally succeeding as it is helping to solve native development problems and ensures to satisfy product owners, technical teams and end users. Native application development can be your first choice, but do not ignore what cross-platform development has to offer you until you have looked into various options.

Epilogue

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