The demand for cross platform mobile applications is on the rise as these types of apps work effectively in all the major operating systems used by enterprises and individuals.
The demand for cross platform mobile applications is on the rise as these types of apps work effectively in all the major operating systems used by enterprises and individuals. While designing cross platform apps is a cost effective option for software developers since they now have to write a single code for building applications for every OS platform,
it also leads to cost reductions for the users since they have to download only one app for running in separate platforms.
With the rising adoption of multiplatform mobile applications, there is a pressure upon developers to deliver good quality cross platform apps. Listed below are 5 tools that developers should use for functional and successful cross platform app development:
RhoMobile – This tool offers the open source framework of Rhodes, based on Ruby, which a developer can use for the creation of native mobile applications that will work successfully in platforms like Android, iOS, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, and Symbian. The hardware available under the RhoMobile framework allows designers to complete the app building process more quickly and with greater accuracy. The hosted environments of RhoHub and RhoSync offered by RhoMobile help in keeping app information current on handheld mobile devices.
Appcelerator – This Titanium based development platform allows building of apps for not only mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, but also desktops. Since developers have to use the simple scripting languages of JavaScript, HTML, PHP, Python, or Ruby for building the software, building native apps with the help of this framework is easy for any developer. The best part of using Appcelerator is that the developer will have access to local data and more than 300 APIs.
PhoneGap – This tool provides an FOSS framework to developers for designing mobile applications for the iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Symbian, and Palm operating systems. Moreover, popular programming languages of JavaScript and HTML can be used for app creation, making the process easier. PhoneGap is especially helpful to software developers dealing with the creation of apps related to GPS or location, accelerometer, camera, and such other hardware features of a mobile device.
WidgetPad – This is an open source collaborative framework which is most often used for the creation of mobile apps for smartphone devices. This tool allows the software developer to perform several functionalities related to an app, like debugging, source code editing, distribution, project management, and versioning. Developers only need to have thorough knowledge of the common programming languages of HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS3 for designing native apps using WidgetPad. However, the only problem with this cross platform app development environment is that it can be used for creating software for only three operating systems, namely, Android, iOS, and WebOS. Other OS platforms are yet not supported by WidgetPad.
MoSync – This is an FOSS environment providing SDK tools for building multiplatform apps. Since MoSync supports only the scripting languages of C and C++, standard web programming methods are used for designing cross platform apps with this tool. However, it has been announced that Mosync will soon support the common languages of JavaScript, Ruby, PHP, and Python. The SDK framework offers developers with features like libraries, integrated compilers, runtimes, and device profiles for creating apps for Android, Windows Mobile, Symbian, and Linux distro.
Use these best 5 tools to develop successful cross platform apps.
