Cross Platform mobile development has really taken off in recent years. According to IDC, the market for such platforms will witness an annual compound growth rate of over 38%, which means that such platforms will see a growth figure of around $4.8 billion by 2016. According to Gartner, over 20 million enterprise apps will be developed by 2018.
Today, a trend called BYOD (Bring your own Device) is increasingly becoming popular in organizations across the world. This means that users bring in their own laptops and mobile devices into the workplace, instead of company provided devices to access company application and data. Hence, BYOD has necessitated cross platform solutions that can operate on a range of networks and different operating systems.
Moreover, presently, many large and medium sized companies are adding tablet as well as smart phone apps to their business recipe, so that they can roll out their own apps for the benefit of their customers. For this reason, cross platform mobile application development has caught the fancy of enterprises as well as mobile apps developers across the world.
Let us examine some of the best cross-platform mobile application development
#1. RhoMobile
This company offers Rhodes, an open source framework for cross platform mobile application development based on Ruby. Here, the developer can create native apps that span over a wide range of OS as well as smartphones. The range of mobile OS included is Android, Windows Mobile, Symbian, iphone, and RIM, thereby covering pretty much all of it.
RhoMobile supplies a framework in such a way that the user only needs to code only once. With this code, it is possible to build apps for most of the major smartphones. Also available is RhoHub, which is a hosted development environment, while another product, RhoSync can be employed as a standalone server, so that it becomes possible to keep all the app data current on the user’s handheld devices.
#2. PhoneGap
PhoneGap has won great acclaim at the Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco 2009. Using the standard web development languages such as HTML and JavaScript, the platform utilizes the FOSS environment to create apps. The range covers pretty much the entire landscape of Android, Blackberry, iPhone, iPad, Symbian, Blackberry, and other devices.
With PhoneGap, it is also possible to work with various device hardware aspects as well. Additionally, users get to work with an Adobe AIR app. PhoneGap also offers online training courses, so that the developers can access native API’s and build mobile apps.
#3. Cocos2d
Cocos is primarily utilized for 2D game development, and gives developers the option of five different forks/platforms for development. The various options available are for C++, JavaScript, Xcode and Objective C, and Python.
#4. Xamarin
Xamarin is one of the key leaders in cross platform development recently. It has been going strength-to-strength and has methodically built its platform and expanded its reach. The company has further consolidated its position since the release of Xamarin 2. It is also partnering with the big wigs in the industry such as IBM, Xoriant and lately with Microsoft. A free trial for Xamarin is available, while the entire product is available for an affordable monthly subscription. It is a C# based platform generally for iOS and Android. This advance platform allows for native APIs to be called in the resulting application. Users can obtain a native iOS or Android dialect, after the code is executed on a .NET framework.
#5. iFactr
iFactr is basically a solution that has been designed for enterprises, that need to build apps quickly for their mobile employees. This platform offers a very low learning curve, hence allowing developers to get hold of the basics within two or three days of product training and platform orientation. iFactr also includes the robust prototyping feature, which allows rapid creating of prototypes for testing for their employees.
This platform makes use of Xamarin to compile native apps on iOS and Android, while PhoneGap is also built into it.
#6. Alpha Anywhere
Alpha Anywhere helps you create offline and capable mobile business apps quickly. You can also prototype, develop and deploy secure mobile as well as web apps with a native experience on any device via a single code base.
#7. Appcelerator
This is a cross platform JavaScript runtime as well as API framework that are used to do mobile development on iOS, Android, as well as the mobile web. It uses unified JavaScript API, combining native performances as well a platform-specific features. Appcelerator offers a great user experience that offers access to native UI as well as native features, which achieves a higher level of performance than most “hybrid” approaches.
#8. Corona
Corona is a cross platform app development tool that allows for super fast development. With the help of elegant APIs, developers are able to add complex features easily, so that they are able to see changes instantly from the workflow. The development language is LUA, which is a fast and easy-to-learn language.
#9. Sencha
Sencha is a tool that lets you develop HTML5 apps. The main product Ext Js 5 is used by developers because of its ability to work on a handful of devices on various platforms that boosts productivity with the help of pre-built components. Once the HTML5 code is developed, it can be translated in to iOS and Android Platforms using a tool such as PhoneGap.
#10. Qt
Qt is a subscription based service that allows users to code in C++ and then export the app to different platforms on which the user wants to develop. Once the app is exported, the interface of this tool allows the user to assess the performance of the app and make the necessary changes.
Conclusion
The era of the mobile has made cross development essential. The market for cross platform tools is heating up, as a single solution for all the platforms does not exist out there. Nevertheless, this article will bring to the user’s notice the number of positive developments that have been made in this direction.
Images: “Cross Platform Development/Shutterstock.com“
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