Cross Platform Mobile App Development And the Top 7 Tools Used For Developing Cross Platform Mobile Apps

What is Cross Platform Mobile App Development?

In simple terms, Cross Platform Mobile App Development is an approach of developers to “Write once and run anywhere” or “Develop once and use it anywhere, on any device.”

You ‘ve heard of phones like Android, iOS, BlackBerry, and Windows Mobile phones and many more. These are also called as Platforms by developers.

What does it mean when we talk about cross platform development?

Traditionally, developers of an App will choose to develop their Apps for either Android or iOS and, if the App was developed for iOS, it will run only on phones running with Apple iOS. Eventually the developer’s chance to cater the needs of users is limited to only a particular segment of audience (I.E. Apple users).

With the rapid use of Mobile Apps in all sorts of fields (like medical, retail, tracking and managing business schedules and others), it gets difficult to develop for just one platform. If a mobile App developer was to develop an App traditionally, he will have to write separate code for each of the Platforms, doubling the development time and cost.

A common question nagging all Mobile App developers: what if they could write once and run the app on all platforms? If this was possible, it would be a heavens boon to them, as the time and cost would be reduced during the development cycle of the App and the code would become reusable on all platforms

Well, that time is here. There are now several App development tools available that can help the developer to develop the code once and run them on multiple platforms.

This will reduce the cost and time of the App development.

Limitations:

As it goes with any new technology, there are certain limitations with Cross Platform Development tools.

Mobile Apps developed for cross platform do have limitations; for instance when the OS or Platform is upgraded, then the App will also need to be upgraded. But the overall advantages offset the limitations.

There are several tools out there for Cross Platform Development. Here are some of our favorites:

1. MoSync
2.  Whoop
3.  Appcelerator
4.  Widgetpad
5.  RhoMobile
6.  PhoneGap
7. Xmarin

In our next article we will see a comparative study of different Cross Platform development tools.