Cross Platform App Development Tools End the OS Debate

Over the past few years, the market for mobile application development has observed a steep rise and most large and medium sized companies are adapting to the mobile world and realizing the need to offer smartphone access to their line of business apps. This need to rapidly develop and deploy an application means that cross platform tools will become more popular over the coming years. It is forecasted that the market for such development platforms will see an annual growth rate of about 38% reaching $4.8 billion by the year 2017. So, to understand who the key players in the mobile application world are, I have rounded up some of the best cross platform development tools for clear understanding.

PhoneGap: This is one of the most popular cross platform development tools that are used by most mobile app development companies. This Adobe owned tool is based on the open source Apache Cordova and can be used for free. This platform helps to reach across various platforms that include iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry, Palm and etc. PhoneGap allows the iPhone developers and Android app developers to create mobile apps using HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript giving access to native APIs.

Appcelerator Titanium: This platform uses PHP, CSS3, JavaScript, HTML5, Python and Ruby to create various applications that run on Android and iOS. Its strongest benefit is the high performance of the applications and easy access to a great range of native features. The use of JavaScript is helpful as most of the developers are familiar with the language and this reduces the time spend to get a grip with unfamiliar codes. The platform also provides a virtual private cloud option for customers and it also comes with performance management, monitoring and dedicated infrastructure.

Xamarin: This platform allows the developers to create native iOS, Windows and Android apps by using a single shared C# codebase.  The cloud service offered by the framework helps to test the app on hundreds of devices. It also offers its own interface development tools and some other features that it provides include the native API access, ability to add components directly from the interface, easy integration with back-ends like Microsoft Azure, SAP, Parse and interfaces for sharing codes. 

Sencha Touch:  This is an UI framework for HTML5 applications and offers a wide range of cross platform app development like Sencha Animator, Sencha Architect and etc. The main product is the Ext JS5 that allows the developers to create HTML5 based apps that run across various browsers. The cross platform tool has over 50 built-in components, a built in MVC system and helps to create apps that are responsive and looks like native ones.

Besides the above four platforms, there are other tools and frameworks that can be mentioned. But, I will discuss that in my next blog. It is with the use of these tools that the concept of using one application for different mobile platforms has come true.