Mobile continues to dominate the business world. If you need any more evidence, according to Gartner, by 2020 70 percent of all software interactions in enterprises will be done mobile devices.
That’s a problem for companies of all sizes. Developing mobile apps is difficult and time-consuming, especially because companies need to develop apps for both iOS and Android. That can double the work required, because the development tools and techniques are different for each platform.
The answer? Cross-platform hybrid app development can solve the problem. Hybrid apps are native apps, and like any other native apps, are downloaded from each platform’s app store, with the same native capabilities and hardware-based performance acceleration as any other native app. However, they’re built HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, instead of the proprietary and specialized languages used by each platform. That lets developers write the app once, with a single codebase, and then deploy the app to each individual platform.
The white paper, Hybrid vs Native: An introduction to cross-platform hybrid development, offers an excellent introduction to cross-platform development and is well worth reading.
It starts by highlighting these benefits of cr
oss-platform development:
Speed
The paper claims that writing apps from a single codebase can allow developers to deliver apps two to three times faster than if they were doing it via native development.
Efficiency
Because companies don’t have to hire and retain developers specialized in developing native apps, teams can save teams 60% of their time, according to the paper.
Design and UX consistency
In cross-platform hybrid development, you use one codebase to create desktop, mobile, web, and hybrid apps. In the words of the white paper, that provides “better design and UX consistency across channels.”
Use existing skillsets
The report says, “Hybrid gives web developers and businesses with in-house web teams the tools to build powerful mobile apps using their existing skills and talent.”
The report emphasizes that if your company goes cross-platform hybrid, you’ll have a far easier time attracting talent at the right price. It claims, “The web developer community is about 10x greater in size than the number of native mobile app developers, according to the latest Stack Overflow survey. Many development teams already have a deep bench of programmers who understand HTML, CSS and JavaScript.”
In addition, the paper says cross-platform development helps businesses write better apps to help attract customers. The healthcare app Sanvello uses cross-platform hybrid development, the paper says, and as a result it builds more effective apps. Here’s what Sanvello Chief Technology Office Dale Beerman says: “With hybrid, we can run our app across multiple platforms from the get-go, so we can focus on iterating features that are important to the product, as opposed to getting mired in the intricacies of native development.”
The upshot of all this, according to the white paper: “Put together, the advantages of hybrid have helped centralized development teams close the gap and better satisfy the demand for mobile apps for customers and internal employees.”
Finding A Solid Cross-Platform App Development Platform
Alpha Anywhere cross-platform app development software allows you to quickly build and deploy mobile apps for free. These highly secure applications run like native apps desktops and mobile devices. Once you build your app, Alpha Cloud enables one-click deployment for your apps for as little as $99/month, enabling you to keep your business applications safe and secure while speeding them to end-users’ mobile devices.
Alpha Software also offers a range of mentoring, training and professional services to help you speed and scale cross-platform mobile app development at your organization.
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