Web-based Mobile App Development

Developing mobile applications for both iOS and Android (mobile app)

With native app development, you must maintain a single code base for each platform. The size of the code repository is related to the number of platforms that must be supported. You will frequently be required to create for both platforms, but you will not require native language knowledge. Fortunately, there are tools that enable developers who are not familiar with Java or Swift but are specialists in other technologies such as Web or C# to design apps for both Android and iOS. (mobile app)

Numerous open source groups and businesses have created frameworks tailored to their developer base for developing for Android and iOS. These frameworks come with their own ecosystem of tools and integrated development environments (IDEs), which makes it easier for developers who are already familiar with them.

For example, Xamarin tooling is optimised for Microsoft Visual Studio, but Apache Cordova tooling is optimised for online IDEs such as VSCode. However, as previously mentioned in the Android and iOS sections, you must install the Android and iOS development environment tools in order for the cross-platform tooling to access the native SDKs and packaging. While some frameworks have their own simulators, they typically use the simulator included with the underlying native Android or iOS development environments.

The following cross-platform frameworks distribute third-party plugins and SDKs via maven or NuGet. Additionally, some developers sell their plugins.

HTML5 and Cordova by Apache (mobile app)

Apache Cordova began as an Adobe project called PhoneGap. You can run HTML and JavaScript (JS) code in a captive browser instance called the Webview using Apache Cordova. Through the use of a webview, you may create code once and then execute it from any location. One issue levelled at the cross-platform method is that response times can be slow as a result of the JavaScript code being executed in the webview. The advantages and disadvantages of mobile frontend frameworks are discussed in greater detail in this IBM Developer article, “Deciding between native and cross-platform mobile frontend programming frameworks.”

The HTML code is included in the application package and installed on the mobile device. This enables the use of a diverse range of online UI frameworks such as Jquery, React JS, Bootstrap, Angular JS, or Vue. Additionally, there are additional layered frameworks like as Ionic that operate atop Cordova. Apart from the UI libraries, plugins enable the JS code to access native device capabilities such as the camera, contact list, or location. There is a significant ecosystem of available third-party plugins.

npm is the most widely used package management. (mobile app)

The developer community’s favourite IDEs are Visual Studio Code and Eclipse. Ionic, which is a wrapper for Apache Cordova and currently uses Angular JS, also offers a paid IDE called Ionic Creator. However, as indicated above, you may still develop an Ionic Angular JS application using any other IDE.

Xamarin and C#

C# is a Microsoft-developed object-oriented programming language. The Xamarin framework (bought by Microsoft) enables you to write C# applications that run on top of the.NET platform. On the iOS platform, the. They implemented NET framework using an open source implementation called mono.

Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code is a popular IDE for writing C# and Xamarin code. Cross-compilation ensures that the C# code works natively on the iOS or Android device. This enables a zero-lag execution environment that is extremely close to native development. There are extensions known as Xamarin. iOS and Xamarin are supported. Android that enables you to access native iOS and Android functionalities via C#. For iOS, you’ll need XCode on a Mac to create an installable iOS application.

React Native with JavaScript

Facebook released React Native in 2015.

React Native is a mobile application development framework that makes use of the JavaScript programming language. They do not use HTML in the development of React Native applications. They parsed and executed the code at runtime via a “bridge” that provides access to the device’s native SDK capabilities. React Native applications render UI components using the platform native UI library, which ensures that the UI is genuinely native.

React Native has grown in popularity due to the easy learning curve associated with JavaScript.

Flutter and Dart

Though Google first made Dart public in 2011, the first stable release was in 2017. Dart is a functional programming language with an emphasis on object-oriented design. You develop iOS mobile apps using Google’s Flutter framework.

Android Studio, IntelliJ, and Visual Studio Code are the most popular IDEs (VSCode). Flutter is unusual in that it includes its own UI widget framework library that is based on Google Material design and includes iOS-style UI widgets.

Developing mobile applications for the Web

Though not technically an installed application, it’s critical to consider the user interfaces that supplied by navigating to a web URL (web sites). Delivering web pages has some benefit in specific use scenarios, such as creating an app for an incidental or brief occurrence, or gathering modest bits of information such as a user’s name and address without requiring the user to install an app. Progressive web apps (PWAs) have rendered the user experience for apps and websites indistinguishable. These mobile-friendly websites are often built utilising web technologies (HTML, JavaScript, and CSS) plus a UI framework.

Websites that are mobile-friendly

You may create a responsive web site using any of the frameworks such as Material, Bootstrap, or Foundation. Responsive web design utilises layouts that adjust to available real-estate to provide a native experience. For instance, a website may have a five-column layout in a laptop browser, but will render in a two-column layout when viewed in portrait mode from a mobile device’s browser. The two key distinctions between a mobile-optimized website and a standard website when viewed on a mobile phone are that the content should not require zooming in and there should be no horizontal scrolling.