Deciding a Mobile App Development Platform

Everyone would agree to the fact, that the world is going Mobile. The Smartphone has become the primary access point for the Internet Engagement. Mobile Apps have unleashed a revolution of a kind.

For every Mobile App Publisher there are two primary points -

1. Quality of Their App

2. The Go-To-Market Time for their App launch.

There are various factors which influence these variables. Among others, the main point which can make or break a business’s mobile app strategy is the selection of the Platform of the Mobile App.

Half a decade ago, platform selection was a simple choice and the default answer to platform selection concerns was - Native Code Based Development Platform. For both Android and iOS, Native was the only way to go. With changing time, cross platform app development platforms came into existence, which is developing apps as Web apps that run in a browser, and then wrapping them in such a way that they look like running as native apps on mobile operating systems. In addition to the resulting single code-base which greatly simplifies management of your app's life cycle.

It is also possible to leverage both cross platform and native platform in HTML5 hybrid mobile apps. The HTML5 hybrid apps are cross-platform apps but render the user interface using an embedded web browser, leveraging HTML, CSS and Javascript.

The brief  cons and pros for each platform is as follows:

Native Platform: Apps are developed using object c or iOS, Java for Android.

Pros:

• If the product  is heavy on animations and has lots of user interactions then Native would be a better choice.
• Native Apps are better if access to hardware features and saving encrypted data is concerned.

Cons:

• Native Apps are often expensive if build for multiple platforms.
• Require more developers with experience in each framework.

Cross Platform Apps:  Cross platform Apps are developed with Native Script, xamarin etc.

Pros:

• Cross platform application generally will cost less than native because native should be separately developed for different platforms.
• Cross platform apps can present quick prototype showing simple concept.

Cons:

• Not all the native features are available for use.
• Lack of native platform knowledge may cause issues for developers while resolving debugging/build  issues.
• There is a lot of  operational software overhead like in xamarin.

HTML5 based Hybrid Apps:  The HTML based Apps are developed using HTML5, CSS, JavaScript and use cordova/phoneGap as build platforms

Pros:

• Code can be shared upto 80% and hence provides faster development.
• Access to device hardware features can be done using plugin support.
• The app can be updated without going via the App Store.

Cons:

• To add some native features like accelerometer,camera the apps are required to add separate cordova plugin which is a overhead.
• It takes a long time to achieve the performance that native apps provide.

To sum things up, platform selection is the first thing that product managers need to spend time on prior to starting development. There is no magic formula that will answer platform selection concerns because every App is unique with a unique business use case. The cost benefit analysis should be done to arrive at the best choice of platform for your mobile App strategy. If you have enough budget and if you expect extreme perfection, Then native apps can be considered. If Apps are smaller or have simple UI no much complex hardware interactions cross platforms apps can be considered.