Cross Platform Frameworks for Mobile Application Development

Mobile application development is a challenge, as it requires a reasonable amount of customization to run on diverse platforms, hardware, OS version and browser. Each of the platforms for mobile apps has an integrated development environment which provides tools to allow a developer to write programs, test and deploy applications into the target platform. Mobile apps development platform usually contains the target mobile platforms, infrastructure and development language skills. This eventually leads to the need for cross platform development, which is nothing but writing an application using a code base and technology that will allow deployment of the application on multiple platforms, devices or operating systems.

Mobile applications come in two distinct formats: mobile web apps and native app. Mobile web apps is a web application for Smartphones and tablets, and accessed through mobile device’s web browser and its cross platform compatibility. Mobile web App is built with major technologies: HTML (define static text and image), CSS (define style and presentation), and JavaScript (define interactions and animations). Mobile Native Apps is built specifically for a particular device and its operating system. Native apps are written in Java, Objective C, C# or some other programming language. Cross platform frameworks are used to build platform-neutral core architecture for each of the environments in which the application will run, such as Android, RIM, Blackberry, iOS and Windows Phone. The Hybrid Apps are native Apps with Web Apps inside.

Frameworks are available today to accelerate the mobile application development and also to support cross platform development.  Some of them are
 PhoneGap: PhoneGap is an open source framework, to build native installation application across the range different devices and platform, it build application using HTML, Dreamweaver CS 5.5, CSS, JavaScript, it use native App embedding webkit browser , native code/functionality accessible from JavaScript and support for core API such as Contacts, Geo-location, Accelerometer, Device, File I/O, Network , Camera, Events and Notifications, it support native components such as Tab bar, Child browser, Table view and support for 3rd party apps like Facebook, Linkedin,etc. Some limitation like accessing the database.
• Sencha Touch : Sencha Touch Sencha Touch is a framework that provides rich UI for mobile device. Sencha Touch is a mobile web app framework built using HTML5, CSS3 and the JavaScript, provide full AJAX support, automatically detects the geoloaction, canvas and orientation, provide packaging of apps, provide touch events and gestures (like tap, swipe and pinch), data package used for load & save data and using MVS architecture for easy rendering and manipulation.
• mConnect: Infosys developed mConnect is a real-time enterprise middleware that enables mobile services for websites and ecommerce platforms. Thin and thick client mobile web applications can be developed using mConnect and the same can be viewed on any platform, Android, iOS or Blackberry. mConnect provides the capability to generate real time user interface based on specific functionality requested and also internationalization realized through multilingual feature.
• Adobe Flash Builder: Provides a platform to develop native applications for iOS, Android, and Blackberry Tablet OS through tight control over the appearance and behavior of the user interface. Additionally provides the capability to package applications as platform-specific installer files for upload to application stores.
• IBM Worklight : IBM Worklight is a platform that provides uniquely flexible mobile IDE called the Worklight Studio, which helps the developers to choose between native, hybrid and web applications efficiently. It helps the developer to avoid various numbers of rewrites of the same application for deployment on every target platform. It supports all the native platform services hence leveraging the use of this kind of a cross-platform development tool. It is also extremely feasible in maintaining the portability of code across various platforms and devices. It also provides good access to the native development, testing and debugging tools of the target SDK’s. It provides full capabilities to leverage the various features that HTML5 has to offer and provide lots of adaptor for database operation which are limitation in PhoneGap.

The key takeaways are platform-independent architecture mobile apps reaching a wider audience. Native apps provide a rich user experience. The frameworks PhoneGap, Sencha Touch, mConnent, Adobe Flash Builder and Worklight help to build and deploy the mobile apps by minimizing the cross-platform complexity, speed up the development and save cost. As part of standardization of automation solutions for mobility, Infosys Tools Group has identified the frameworks above as some of the more prominent ones available today for cross platform development. The lookout for the best in this area will continue in order to keep pace with the evolving trends in technology.

Created with inputs from Sandeep_Chauhan01

COMMENTS

Some of the frameworks deliver a native user interface, whereas others construct a native-like interface using HTML5 technologies. When choosing a framework it is significant to test the end-user experience that the framework delivers and ensure you are glad with any compromises.

In this tech world there are lots of smartphones available with different screen sizes and versions. In this situation cross platform mobile apps are one of the best solution which enables to write once and run the same code on multiple platforms. According to me PhoneGap is one of the best cross platform framework among all them.

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