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Thinking of getting an application developed across major platforms? Budget is a problem! Think no more, you can get the solution with the help of cross platform mobile application development tools such as Titanium, Adobe Flash Builder and MoSync. They offer native mobile app development which was not the case with the earlier unified app developing tools. Some of the major tools are as follows:
1) Adobe Flash Builder 4.5.1: Supports native cross-platform development for Android, iOS and BlackBerry Tablet OS.
2) Titanium Studio 1.0: Provided by the company Appcelerator, it currently offers an IDE and allows JavaScript based development of native applications for Android and iOS. A beta version is also available that supports development for BlackBerry.
3) MoSync 2.5: Offers an IDE for cross-platform development with C++ for several platforms including iOS, Android.
Every technology has its pros and cons. Similar is the case with unified platform development tools. If they are a boon then in some ways they are not helpful also. With its comparison with native platform app development one can figure out the approach to make a particular application.
Comparison of Unified & Native App Development
1) User Interface
Many cross platform tools provide most of the UI components for iOS & android. So if the application is made with the help of unified tool, the app gets the look and feel of application developed natively. But if the UI needs to be customized then the developers prefer the native form of development as it offers a better choice of customization and total control over handling of UI layouts and inter component navigations.
2) Native Mobile platform functionality - Support and Integration
When it comes to choosing functional features, developers can choose from a limited number of features when working with unified platform tools and many features are not available for these tools. As a result of this the native functional APIs which are not supported by the cross platform development tools, the developer either needs to wait for their availability in the upgraded version or use the native platform.
3) Database and data format centric compatibility considerations
When working on unified platform developers are restricted in using only one type of database and language for the generation of the application.
4) Multi platform OS layer performance considerations
A Cross-platform tool does not provide efficient ways to manage memory utilization. While working on unified platforms one is restricted to focus on the features that are common on all the mobile platforms as a result of which configuring/editing of only those features is supported and documented while configuring the remaining features might be supported but cannot documented. Applications developed on cross platform are slower as compared to native apps and also debugging capacities of many cross platform tools are limited.
If we go through the article one thing is sure that working with cross-platform mobile development tools does offer solution to the issues faced when it comes to developing same application on multiple mobile platforms. Sometimes even these tools do not have answer for the features that work specifically on the native app developing platform. It is necessary for the company to select the development approach based on the requirements of the project. If the project requires little or no customization and has a fairly straightforward UI then it would be possible to develop it using one of the cross-platform tools but if the development involves significant customization then a cross-platform solution may not be the best solution.
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