Mobinius : Mobile Native vs Cross Platform
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The document compares native and cross-platform mobile application development. Native apps are developed specifically for a single platform using that platform's native tools and programming languages, allowing them to offer the best user experience, performance, and access to device-specific features. However, native development has higher costs for deploying to multiple platforms due to separate development efforts required. Cross-platform apps allow writing code once that runs on multiple platforms but have limitations in user experience, performance, features, and timely access to OS innovations compared to native.
Mobinius : Mobile Native vs Cross Platform
- 1. Native vs Cross Platform – a comparison
- 2. Native and Cross Platform Native Application Development A native mobile app is a device-specific program designed to run on a mobile device and its associated OS. Native apps can come preinstalled on smartphones or tablets, but can also be downloaded from a public and internal/enterprise app stores. Native apps are developed to leverage mobile device capabilities directly from the operating system, such as the camera, geo-location, animation and more. Cross Platform Application Development They provide developers the flexibility to create an application that run across multiple mobile devices according to the ideal principle “write-once- run-everywhere".
- 3. Native Development Tools Android Android SDK Java Apple iOS Objective- C Xcode IDE for UI s BlackBerry Java C/C++ (for BB10) Eclipse IDE Windows Windows SDK .Net
- 4. Cross Platform Development Tools Sencha Touch JavaScript HTML5 CSS Titanium JavaScript HTML5 CSS Phone Gap JavaScript HTML5 CSS Qt (cute) QML CSS Adobe Air HTML5 JavaScript Adobe Flash
- 5. Cross-Platform vs Native • User Experience – Native apps provide a more fluid and responsive interface than cross-platform solutions, especially for animations and gestures. This is because when coding with the indented programming language of the platform you have access to the full device APIs. Though cross-platform solutions offer native APIs to use, it always refers to a limited subset of the device-specific features and often you have to wait until they are released in order to use them. • Performance – One key advantage of using native development tools is that applications run more smoothly on whichever mobile devices use that operating system. Instead, the cross-compilation process can sometimes be slower than using native tools for an app. This difference can be easily noted during graphical rendering and animations.
- 6. Cross-Platform vs Native • Device-specific features. – In addition, native tools let developers take full advantages of platform functionality. On the contrary, a cross-platform application serves everyone, but has more limited functionality. – For example, with cross-platform apps, high-end graphics and 3D support is often limited. There are some cross-platform solutions (like Titanium) that compile code into the native language, but none of them compile it to completely native. • Distribution via app-store. – There may be stringent requirements for admission into public app stores. Apple Inc.,for instance, requires that developers submit iPhone mobile digital device applications for testing within Apple to facilitate such compatibility. In this sense, apps developed using native tools are in general more welcome in app store than cross apps because it is assumed that native apps have been developed by programmers with expertise of the target platform. – One key advantage of using native development tools is that applications run more smoothly on whichever mobile devices use that operating system. Instead, the cross-compilation process can sometimes be slower than using native tools for an app. This difference can be easily noted during graphical rendering and animations.
- 7. Cross-Platform vs Native • Multiple platforms deployment costs – With native, when developers want to target multiple platforms, they have to adopt application architecture best practices and use of a common data model to optimize the development effort across multiple platforms. Native requires developers with (not so common) skills for the target platforms. For example, with cross-platform apps, high-end graphics and 3D support is often limited. There are some cross-platform solutions (like Titanium) that compile code into the native language, but none of them compile it to completely native. – With cross apps, development costs are reduced. This is perhaps the biggest advantage because a cross-compilation schema allows companies or brands to get an app onto other platforms without having to invest in a team or developer specific to that ecosystem. • Developers support. – Developers we work with often say that they like to work in native code because it is easier to get help. They can go online to forums and quickly get answers since many people started writing native code for a much longer time than cross-platform code (a more recent technique).
- 8. Cross-Platform vs Native • Security – Cross-platform apps present more security risks than native apps. The reason is that they inherit the same risks of HTML5. For example, to name a few, application source code is freely available on the mobile device, data cached on the device (within the browser) not properly secured and encrypted, URL security vulnerabilities. On the contrary, operating systems like iOS and Android offer built-in security services like data encryption. Attack techniques such as cookie manipulation and SQL injection to gather sensitive data from back end servers and from the mobile device itself are not possible in a (well-built) native app • Timely access to new OS innovations – A cross-platform framework may not support every feature of an operating system or device. Any new added feature of the operating system is not immediately available on the cross-platform framework you are using. You need to wait it is updated to support those new features.
- 9. Cross-Platform vs Native • Code Reusability – Cross app code is considered reusable. Rather than having to write a specific action or a sequence of actions for each target platform, a cross developer can just write the code once and then reuse it on other platforms or in other projects. This is not always true. Often some cross-platform frameworks often use their own subsets of JavaScript, which means that if you want to switch to an other platform, that code you wrote before is likely not going to be reusable without refactoring or substantial changes. • Design Challenges – In native development, design is simplified by the support and services provided by the operating system. The operating system can, for example, notify applications about events such as message arrival and power levels. In a cross-platform environment, developers will need to add such features explicitly. – Moreover, with cross-platform frameworks, developers must design how each feature they need has to be implemented on each target platform. For instance, designing an app for the iPhone is different than designing one for Android; the UI and user experience conventions are different, and touch points and menus work in different ways. Personally, we think a good cross-platform application looks at home on whatever platform it is used on. A bad cross-platform tries to look identical everywhere.
- 10. Comparison Features Native Cross- Platform UI User Experience High Low Performance High Low Device Specific Features High Low Distribution Via app store High Low Multiple platforms deployment costs High Low Developers support High Low Security High Low Timely access to new OS innovations High Low Code reusability Low High Design Challenges Low High Availability of Programming expertise Low High
- 11. Thank You