Multi Platform Mobile Development or Cross Platform Development is the development of mobile applications for more than one Operating System or platform. The concept of Multi Platform Mobile Development has become quite popular ever since multiple platforms for mobiles or Smartphones such as Android and IOS have been launched. There are many competitive tools available for Multi Platform Development and such a tool allows the developers to build the original app in a single environment and then launching the app at the various native platforms. One advantage of using these tools is that they are very simple and easy to work with as they employ common scripting languages such as JavaScript, HTML and CSS. Currently, there are following most popularly used Multi-platform Development Tools.
- PhoneGap- PhoneGap is an Adobe product and is a commonly used tool for first timers as it serves as an efficient free resource for translating the code from HTML5, CSS and JavaScript. The SDKs (Software Development Kits) are maintained by Adobe for each of the mobile platform that the user is enabled to work on. Also, it even lets you share your app after its completion with your colleagues or team members for reviewing for improvements or approval. PhoneGap lets you create apps not only for Android and IOS but also for Windows and Blackberry phones.
- Sencha- Sencha is another robust tool for developing apps in HTML5. The majorly used product of Sencha is Ext JS which is the most seamless framework for building resourceful web applications for desktops, Mobiles and even Tablets. Ext JS helps the developer to build prototypes using mock data with several unique themes for superior branding of your product. So this one tool basically saves a lot of time when writing code.
- Appcelerator Titanium- Titanium’s SDK helps you create indigenous apps for platforms such as Android and IOS and also reuses about 60%-90% of the code for all your apps which results in this tool being a huge time saver. Another highlight of Titanium is that it is an open source tool which implies that it lets developers contribute to its code. Anyone, including you is free to find a bug and improve its functionality.
- Unity 3D- Unity 3D is a very popular and amazing game engine and so it focuses more on creating Games with superior graphics. The multi platform mobile development tool goes way beyond translating code. Once you finish coding your game in UnityScript, C# or Boo, it lets you launch your game on 17 different platforms which includes everything Android, Windows and IOS to Playstation, Xbox, Wii and Linux. This awesome tool even helps you distribute your game to different stores and track their user analytics.
- Corona- The SDK of this multi-platform tool ensures the user to begin coding of the app in as little as five minutes right after the download. Corona is also optimized for developing 2D games with incredible graphics and that too in considerably very short time as compared to starting everything from scratch.
While Multi-platform mobile development tools makes the work easier for developers by letting them develop apps for various platforms in a single environment it does not however suits the web designers the same way. Apps created with multi-platform tools for various platforms will anyhow need to be optimized for different devices in design UI and UX. Therefore, do not forget to pay attention to the UI and UX as it can make or break your app.
