Businesses running their own apps seek to reduce development costs, minimize the time-to-market, and reach a maximum audience. And cross-platform mobile development, which once revolutionized and blew up the industry, successfully covers these needs today. Certainly, this approach isn’t universal and is not without flaws. But numerous benefits make cross-platform apps incredibly popular.
An important role in the success of mobile solutions is played by an app development company. It should be a competent and responsible partner for you. Limestone Digital will be a reliable guide for you along the way from the app concept to its creation. Combining cutting-edge technology with our expertise, company developers will unlock the potential of your idea and implement even the most complex solution. And while you haven’t yet determined which approach to development will be suitable for your application, we suggest you explore all the nuances of cross-platform app development.
There are several approaches in mobile app development, the key of which are native, cross-platform, and hybrid one. Traditionally, developers have relied on native development with tools and coding languages dedicated to a single system (C++, Java, Kotlin — for Android platforms, Swift and Objective-C — for iOS). But in the era of diverse devices and multiple operating systems, native app development has become less relevant, while cross-platform applications are gaining more and more popularity.
Cross-platform development is an approach to developing mobile applications compatible with multiple platforms and various operating systems (OSs). To code cross-platform software, developers use programming languages that aren’t specific to a single platform, for example, JavaScript, Dart, and C#. Since none of these languages is native to mobile devices and OSs, developers use cross-platform frameworks to pack ready-made code into native “containers” that allow them to run on various platforms. Or in other words, developers write a single code and then reuse it for each operating system.
Сompanies interested in custom software development have the obvious question — Why choose exactly cross-platform application development rather than native or hybrid one? It’s simple. The answer is in its significant advantages.
According to Statista, the mobile operating system market share worldwide as of the first quarter of 2023 is as follows:
From this, we can conclude that developing cross-platform mobile apps allows you to cover almost all mobile device users. The release of a native app for Android devices means you’ll lose more than a quarter of potential users.
Certainly, you can create two or three apps for each separate platform. But every individual development process takes additional time resulting in extra costs. Moreover, by spending time building several applications, you push back the market release time. And this may affect the competitiveness and success of your mobile solution.
Cross-platform app development requires just one set of codebase, reusable features, plugins, and components. It takes much less time to bring custom mobile solutions to markets. So, the sooner your app is developed and deployed, the sooner you will benefit from it.
By adopting a cross-platform approach, clients can significantly reduce development time. And the less time spent building a mobile app, the lower the expenses. Utilizing a single, shareable codebase requires less effort and fewer resources. It reduces costs associated with maintaining and updating multiple codebases. Changes or updates can be implemented more efficiently, as they only need to be made once and applied to all supported platforms. Furthermore, mobile app development companies provide considerable savings as there is no need to hire separate teams for each platform.
With a single codebase, creating separate user interfaces for Android and iOS is unnecessary. Cross-platform app developers just build mobile solutions with the same look and feel across all platforms so that users have a consistent and intuitive experience, regardless of their device. However, cross-platform app development also allows the creation of individual UI/UX according to the platform requirements. It will be more expensive, but at the same time, your application will look and feel natural on both iOS and Android.
Native application development requires separate maintenance and updates for each platform. It is difficult and time-consuming. The multi-platform approach, in turn, allows developers to update and maintain apps on Android and iOS simultaneously. With an equal codebase, it is easier and faster to fix bugs. As a result, you receive one debugged application logic with fewer errors and improved efficiency.
Despite all the advantages described above, the final choice of the right development approach for your mobile application depends on various factors. You should consider the industry, project requirements, target audience, and development resources. If you are unsure that the cross-platform mobile development approach is right for you, get a business consultation with a Limestone Digital representative. We will pick up for you the best option and discuss further steps.
The choice of framework is no less important than selecting a mobile app development company. Because the success of mobile apps also varies depending on the tools employed. To make an informed decision about which framework is the most suitable for your project, you have to consider its performance, speed, capabilities, and other features. But it is worth noting that there is no one-size-fits-all tool that will be ideal for everyone. The final choice largely depends on your particular project and its goals.
Below is the list of the most widely used frameworks for building cross-platform apps. Let’s take a look at their features, pros, and cons.
Flutter is a free, open-source UI toolkit from Google for cross-platform app development. Released in 2017, it has rapidly gained popularity due to its ease of use, performance, and speed. Flutter is powered by Dart, which is still unable to compete with major programming languages such as Java and Kotlin. The framework doesn’t rely on web browser technology and has its own high-performance rendering engine to draw widgets.
Flutter’s key feature is hot reload, which allows mobile app developers to experiment easily with changing the code and immediately seeing the results. It is the fastest time-to-market cross-platform framework and is ideal for MVP development. Although Flutter works well on both Android and iOS, it may have problems with the last one.
In 2015, Meta Platforms Inc. presented the free and open-source framework React Native. It enables mobile app development using only JavaScript language. And it’s very likely that your team has some experience with any JS-based tool. React Native supports a wide range of third-party libraries and plugins, with which it’s easier to add new features and functionality to applications. The framework also offers a hot reload feature, making the cross-platform mobile development process faster and, as a result, cost-efficient.
React Native apps are usually more lightweight and need less code than other frameworks. But their maintenance may sometimes be complicated because of updating issues. The process can be time-consuming, more expensive and might require much effort. However, Fabric, React Native’s new rendering system, helps to mitigate these issues.
This framework is a developer favourite, as it helps to create apps with a native-like feel. Ionic combines the properties in demand for mobile app development: open-source, scalable, easy to read and maintain. It is based on AngularJS, enabling cross-platform developers to use a combination of such top programming languages as HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS. The framework has a rich set of components and tools thus, Ionic apps are highly interactive and visually appealing.
Ionic has a decreased productivity compared to the previous frameworks from our list. It’s because of the lack of a hot reload feature. And cross-platform app developers have to restart the whole application instead of its piece after even a small change in the code. But anyway, Ionic is extremely popular due to its features, including smooth performance across various mobile devices.
Xamarin framework is perfect for cross-platform app development as it enables the simultaneous building of applications for Android, Windows, and iOS. It relies on the C# programming language complemented with .NET instead of JS libraries and HTML.
The framework provides two approaches to developing apps. The first, Xamarin.Native, is quite similar to developing a native app. It utilizes shared backend code but requires writing individual user interface (UI) elements for each targeted platform. And this approach allows developers to push for polished experiences. Meanwhile, Xamarin.Forms allows writing UI code once and having it rendered natively on each platform, which makes cross-platform app development easier. But at the same time, this UI framework provides limited flexibility.
Xamarin is perfect for mobile app development companies already using other .NET solutions. Its robust compile-time checking feature helps developers identify errors and potential issues in the code during the compilation and building process. However, this framework may require a larger budget than others from our list.
Apache Cordova (PhoneGap) is also one of the most popular cross-platform mobile app development tools. This is largely because Cordova hybrid apps can be written in HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript. The framework supports using a single code base to build applications for Android, iOS, Windows, and BlackBerry mobile platforms. It also provides access to native device capabilities such as GPS, Camera, Microphone, Accelerometer sensor, Storage, and more.
But achieving a fully native look and feel can be challenging with this framework. And Cordova apps may have larger file sizes compared to native ones. However, it enables rapid application development due to instantly reflected code changes. And it has a large developer community, which is important even for experienced developers.
The selection of a company for mobile app development services follows the same criteria as choosing any other development agency. But in this case, experience in cross-platform development and expertise in your business domain is particularly important. It is advisable to either review the company’s portfolio and previous case studies or directly ask their representative about their experience in building cross-platform applications.
Once you’ve made sure that your potential business partner has expertise in a specific business niche, it’s important to examine its compliance with other parameters and your needs. Looking for a cross-platform app development company, you should keep an eye on the following:
Considering the success of your multi-platform solution directly depends on the mobile app development company, make decisions based on product quality, not cost. The cross-platform approach on its own is lower than creating native apps. In choosing it, you’re already saving on development costs.
Discover the power of multi-platform development and meet your goals faster together with Limestone Digital. We are a company specializing in technology audit and consulting services, SaaS development, product design, team augmentation, and other services to help our clients deliver their vision. Our expertise covers a wide range of industries, including fintech, e-commerce, logistics, healthcare, and others. Seven years of successful work brought Limestone Digital to its position of leadership in the outsourcing market and the #1 software development company in the Czech Republic.
Choose our team if you’re looking for a cross-platform app development company which:
Don’t settle for one platform when you can conquer them all with Limestone Digital. Book a consultation now to turn your app into a cross-platform success story.
