Over the last year or so the market for enterprise-ready mobile cross platform development has actually started to take-off. Large and medium sized companies are progressively adjusting to the mobile world and realising the need to provide tablet computer and smartphone access to their line-of-business applications, in addition to the benefit of presenting their own enterprise-to-customer applications. The demand for the capability to quickly develop and deploy applications at a large scale means cross platform development tools will be really important over the coming years.
IDC forecasts the market for such development platforms will certainly see a compound annual growth rate of over 38 % getting to $4.8 billion by 2017 and Gartner anticipates over 20 million enterprise apps to be developed by 2018. This value appears in the growing number of investments and acquisitions in the enterprise mobile development space. In just the last few weeks we’ve seen Xamarin break records for mobile cross app platform investment and Red Hat acquire MBaaS and dev platform FeedHenry.
For consumer apps, it’s best to select one platform first and build an amazing native experience for it. There are millions of users on each platform, and they have pertained to anticipate a fluid experience with their apps.Cross platform apps have restrictions in regards to what they can supply. However, in a few situations, the benefits of cross platform apps may make them a compelling proposition.
Here is a list of the best cross platform mobile application development tools currently available. These cross platform mobile development tools have different specialties: some concentrate on gaming, some are focussed on data security for business purposes, and others concentrate on letting you use whatever programming language you like, so you (or your developer team) don’t have to learn new ones. Ultimately, which cross platform mobile development tool you decide depends upon your needs and goals for your application.
Sencha
Sencha is a tool that lets you develop your apps in HTML5. Their main product for app developers, though they have many, is Ext Js 5. Developers choose it because it works across a handful of devices on different platforms and boosts productivity with pre-built components that conserve groups bunches of time when writing code. (So it’s not exactly a translation tool, but it is a massive time saver.) When you have your HTML5 code developed, you could translate it to both the iOS and Android platforms using a translation tool like PhoneGap.
PhoneGap2
PhoneGapOwned by Adobe, PhoneGap is a complimentary resource that newbie app developers could use to translate code from HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript.They maintain SDKs (software development packages) on their end for each of the platforms you could develop an app for, so it’s one much less thing you have to bother with. And when your app is completed, you could share it with your group members for review to see if you need to make any sort of improvements.Beyond iOS and Android, PhoneGap also creates apps for BlackBerry and Windows. So it is genuinely a cross platform mobile development tool!
Titanium Studio3
Appcelerator TitaniumUsing JavaScript, Titanium’s SDK produces indigenous iOS and Android applications while reusing anywhere from 60 % to 90 % of the same code for all the apps you make, therefore saving you a significant quantity of time.And because this is an open-source tool, numerous thousands of your fellow developers are constantly contributing to it to make it better and offer it more performance. And if you happen to find a bug in its system, you can too.
Cocos2d4
Cocos2dCocos2d is primarily used in two-dimensional game development. It gives developers the option of 5 different forks or platforms to develop on, based on their preferred programming language:
- Cocos2d-x uses C++
- Cocos2d-JS utilizes JavaScript
- Cocos2dXNA makes use of C#
- Cocos2d-Swift makes use of Xcode and Objective-C
- Cocos2d(Python) utilizes Python
Unity 3D5
Unity 3DAlso focused on creating great games, Unity 3D is a game engine you can use if you really want to take care of your incredible graphics.It goes beyond being a basic translation tool. After establishing your code in UnityScript, C#, or Boo, you could export your games to 17 different platforms, including iOS, Android, Windows, Web, Playstation, Xbox, Wii and Linux.Once you’ve got your game on all your selected platforms, Unity will also assist you distribute it to the appropriate stores, obtain social shares, and track user analytics.
CoronaSDK
CoronaCorona’s SDK comes with the assurance that you could start coding your new app in just 5 minutes after the download. It’s another cross platform mobile development tool that’s optimized for 2D gaming graphics and helps you make games 10 times faster than it would take to code everything from scratch.Corona’s programming language is Lua, which is written in C, making it a cross platform language. Corona chose Lua because they found it to be really robust with a small footprint for mobile apps.
Qt
Qt is a subscription-based service that lets you code in C++, and then export your app to the different platforms on which you intend to develop.Once the apps are exported, the Qt interface lets you access your apps on their respective platforms and devices, so you can see how well the app is operating and make changes if and where needed.The best part? You don’t need to own many different devices for testing.
Xamarin
With a totally free starter option, Xamarin is a mobile development tool that includes app store delivery, performance testing and monitoring, and the ability to do virtual tests on more than 1,000 devices making sure everything is working and showing like it should.Using Ruby or C# for code, Xamarin has created a robust cross platform mobile development platform that’s been adopted by big names like Microsoft, Foursquare, IBM, and Dow Jones.
Alpha Anywhere
Alpha Anywhere is a tool that gives the developer several options when it involves programming languages, consisting of: C#, JavaScript, Xbasic, VB.NET, or any type of other.NET supported language like Cobra and C++. The site offers step-by-step walkthrough video tutorials to help first-time app developers make certain they’re getting everything right, but it does come with a pretty hefty price tag.
5App
Designed mainly for companies creating apps for their employees to use (or for the people those companies hire to make those apps), 5App concentrates on data security while using HTML5 and JavaScript coding to export apps to Android and iOS. The only downside is they require you to get in contact with them prior to you get started using their platform, but they promise productivity and ease of use once you do.
Keep in mind that cross platform mobile development isn’t really quite as simple as creating the code when, putting it through a tool for translation, and releasing both an iOS and Android app to the respective app stores.Using a cross platform mobile development tool can reduce the time and cost associated with developing applications on both platforms, but the UI has to be upgraded to match each system. As an example, changes are needed between both so the menu and control commands match the UX of how Android devices and iOS devices operate inherently differently.
