Why Build a Cross Platform App Over a Native App

A mobile app is the most effective way to make your business or service available to people on their mobile devices, giving you the power to put your product in their hands, on the go. With native apps, you get more access to a device’s capabilities: You can communicate and market via push notifications, leverage hardware on devices like GPS for location-based marketing, streamline your field operations, and more. But with different operating systems and devices—iOS, Android, and Windows, primarily—which require different source codes to run natively, targeting a mobile audience isn’t always as simple as just creating a mobile version of your site.

Why? Because hiring developers who are specialized in each platform, building apps for each, then maintaining and updating those separate versions can be complex, expensive and time consuming. That’s where hybrid and cross-platform apps come in. These apps are able run on more than just one platform at a time, without developers having to create separate versions of app code.

Hybrid apps, which are essentially written as a web application (using technology like HTML, JavaScript, and CSS) that’s embedded within a “native wrapper” allowing it to run on any device while bypassing the restrictions of a browser-only app functionality (i.e., they can access a device’s hardware).

Native apps created by cross-platform development tools. Cross-platform software compiles a single app source code into native code that will run on different operating systems. It’s a more native feel than a hybrid app, but you’re still only working with one source code.

THE PROS AND CONS OF CROSS-PLATFORM APPS

The cross-platform route allows a developer to create one source code for an app, which the platform then converts into code for the native environment: Android, iOS, Windows, and more. The immediate benefits? There’s a much more native app-like performance than a hybrid app. Also, developers can reuse code that’s already been written, letting the platform handle the compiling, rather than having to write separate source codes like you would for a from-scratch native app. This makes it faster and more cost-effective, as long as you’re not adding a lot of layers of customization to your platform, which can get expensive.

Using a cross-platform software solution also makes deploying and releasing updated versions of your app easier. Features like extended plugins and dashboards to monitor your app’s analytics keep operations under one roof, making life easier for you and your developers.

However, when you rely on a software platform to create your cross-platform native app, there are some things to take into consideration. First, a cross-platform app can only get so close to native without sacrificing some usability. Android, iOS, and Windows have very different designs and interfaces—trying to create something that works on each requires a little compromise. Also, when it comes to updated native software development kits (SDKs), bug fixes, and new versions of operating systems and frameworks, you’re relying on the platform to make those available. The level of functionality you want from your app can add complexity, too.

Which cross-platform app technology is right for you?

Not all cross-platform solutions are created equal, so it’s important to get an idea of the strengths of each, weighing how much integration you’ll need, what you’re willing to pay, and who you’ll need to hire. Your mobile developer will be able to guide you to the best fit for your app’s requirements. Many developers are specialized in one or more of the following platforms and supporting frameworks, so here’s a quick overview of some of the most popular cross-platform tools.

PhoneGap (Apache Cordova)

PhoneGap (distributed by Apache Cordova) is a feature-packed tool that builds cross-platform native apps. When used with frameworks like jQuery Mobile or Ionic, it can be used to quickly develop highly functional apps. PhoneGap also supports technologies many front-end developers already know, like the JavaScript-powered Backbone.js framework and Node.js development environment.

There’s a free plan, or a paid plan that offers increased data and access to more plugins. PhoneGap offers a few options to develop, compile, and deploy mobile apps, including:
PhoneGap Build is its cloud-based app building platform that compiles HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code into native code, without requiring updates or maintenance to the native SDKs behind your apps.

PhoneGap Developer App is a paired desktop app and mobile app setup that allows local development of apps, with built-in access to device APIs. Developers can work locally on an app’s source code, then instantly test updates on a paired device to see how the resulting code functions in real time.

PhoneGap Enterprise is an enterprise-level platform for building more robust apps and integrated marketing support.

Appcelerator Titanium

Titanium is a JavaScript integrated development environment (IDE) that builds cross-platform mobile apps, using built-in features like its incredibly high-powered user interface (UI) components, cloud services, and the Alloy MVC framework. The resulting JavaScript code is run natively on devices with an interpreter, but you’ll need the Android SDK and Apple’s Xcode and will have to create some native code for both operating systems depending on the level of integration you need.

It’s definitely one of the top platforms out there, allowing JavaScript-savvy developers to create powerful back-end cloud services with Arrow, Appcelerator’s mobile API and BaaS framework that connects your app to your database without having to write any server-side code. Titanium also uses JSON data transfer, which adds more speed, especially if your app relies on a lot of data.

Appcelerator is more than just a platform to build cross-platform apps, too: it also offers a dashboard to view analytics, monitor your app’s performance, track crash reports, and more.

Xamarin

Xamarin is a popular cross-platform software that lets developers write a code base in the C# programming language and .NET framework, then it compiles the code for the appropriate native UI—iOS, Android, or Windows. Xamarin allows you to build, test, and monitor your app in the cloud, too. A newer addition to the platform is Xamarin Forms, a cross-platform graphical user interface (GUI) framework.

Apportable SDK

Apportable is a software for building cross-platform native apps, but with Apple-based technologies: the Xcode IDE, and iOS programming languages Objective-C and Swift. If you’ve primarily built iOS mobile apps and want to convert them over to cross-platform, this is a great option to reuse your existing code for Android apps. The Tengu framework allows developers to add Android UI components, too.

Here’s how it works: Swift and Objective-C code is cross-compiled with the Clang compiler, so the Apportable platform doesn’t rely on emulators or virtual machines to run apps in native environments other than iOS. This gives an app added speed and a more seamless experience.

Tengu: Apportable’s SDK for building native iOS apps, and Android apps with Android Studio SDK components.

Apportable Enterprise: a solution for larger corporations that need more bandwidth and support for their native Android apps

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Corona SDK

Corona Labs builds cross-platform native apps for iOS, Android, Kindle, and Nook. It has plenty of plugins and 1,000+ APIs for adding advanced features to apps, like location services, transitions, video, and more. It uses the Lua language and is very popular for mobile game development. Corona’s Enterprise version is all about added flexibility and customization. It allows developers to extend the built-in Lua APIs with their own custom native extensions. RhoMobile is a development environment and MVC framework that’s HTML5-based and uses Ruby controllers. RhoMobile builds native apps that run on a range of devices and operating systems.

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