Evolving Mobile App Development Tools and Technologies

With the evolution of Web Technology in India, almost every business is moving from manual to automation and they are making presence on internet.

In last 5 years, almost every business made them self on internet through personalized websites. Now almost every startups starts their business with website and mobile app.

With the increasing number of mobile users, almost every business is now moving from website to mobile app. If we go 5 year back then the cost and technology of creating a simple mobile app for Android/iOS/Symbian etc. was very high and difficult. We had only Java for Android apps and objective C for iOS.

With the increasing demand of Apps in many companies comes with out of box solution for creating Apps and they almost removed the technology barrier for creating all platform apps. Now if you are .Net developer, you can write code to create all three major platforms (Android / iOS/ Windows ) Apps.

Today, I am going to make you aware of such technologies/ frameworks using which you can create Apps for all 3 major platforms using the language/technology you already know, you need not to learn new technology.

Although there are many platforms available for creating mobile apps but here I will be discussing only five major technologies/platforms.

1.  APACHE CORDOVA 

This is the most simple and a HTML developer who knows only HTML/ JavaScript and CSS can develop apps for all platforms.

Its Free and Opensource  technology. Target multiple platforms with one code base means you can generate apps for all platform with single code. With single code, using command line commands, you can generate apk file for android, xap file for Windows and ipa file for iOS.  Interesting thing is you don't need to create separate app for Tablets also. The same app works on all screen size apps.

For more details and learn about creating apps using Apache Cordova, visit https://cordova.apache.org/

2.  IONIC FRAMEWORK : 

Ionic is the beautiful, free and open source mobile SDK for developing native and progressive web apps with ease.

IONIC framework uses the apache cordova framework to generate apps. IONIC created an UI wrapper over the apache cordova framework which provides built in CSS and controls which can be used to design the apps. Using the IONIC controls / tags you even dont need to design the controls. Almost every icon and layout is created in the framework.

For more details please visit https://ionicframework.com/

The only drawback of the above two framework is you can not create native apps. The app created with apache cordova uses the web view to render the app which is little bit slower than the native app.

3.  XAMARIN FRAMEWORK : 

If you are .Net / C# programmer then you will love to create mobile apps using XAMARIN framework.

Initially XAMARIN was separate entity and was paid. There were no free licence available but when Microsoft acquired, they made 2 developer licence free.

You can install the XAMARIN add-on in the Visual Studio and can program for the apps or you can use the XAMARIN Studio for your programming. XAMARIN studio is also available for iOS platform, So you can program apps using Macbook also.

You can Deliver native Android, iOS, and Windows apps, using existing skills, teams, and code.

For more details, visit https://www.xamarin.com/

4.  NATIVE SCRIPT : 

Native Script uses same technology as Apache Cordova for App development such as HTML/ CSS, TypeScript/JavaScript and Angular but the major difference is it doesn't uses the web view to render the app, it generates the Native App.

Beautiful, accessible, platform-native UI - no webviews. Define once and let NativeScript adapt to run everywhere, or tailor the UI to specific devices and screens.

Currently you can create only Android and iOS apps using NativeScript. As per the NativeScript website, soon you will also be able to create Windows Apps.

It is also opensource (Apache 2 License) and you can create and distribute

NativeScript is backed by Telerik.

For more details , please visit https://www.nativescript.org/

5.  CODENAME : 

Although I haven't worked in this framework but read little bit about this framework. Java developers can now create apps for all platforms using this frameowrk.

Using CodeName you can create native mobile app  with Java for iPhone, Android & everything else.....

You can write code in Java(tm) using Eclipse, NetBeans or IntelliJ/IDEA.

Get more detail on this framework from here : https://www.codenameone.com/

So if you are C# programmer or Java Programmer or UI developer (HTML/CSS/JavaScript/Angular) then you can create Gorgeous mobile apps for all major mobile platforms.

Hope you have good piece of information about mobile development. Please feel free to provide your suggestions/comment and ask questions if any using the comment box given below.