Gone are the days when mobiles were only used for calling and texting. Today, in the digital world, mobile apps cover a considerable part of human life, making their lives easier and better – facilitating them with various services at a single click through the applications. To suffice the surging needs, companies are creating strategies to expand their user reach at a plausible expense.
As you know, Android and iOS are the markets domineer for smartphone applications. In order to expand the customer circle and enhance their business, the developer/ proprietor needs to build the applications for both of the platforms. However, re-coding the same application from scratch in order to deploy on multiple platforms requires nearly the same amount of resources again, proving to be an infeasible process for the company. Cross-platform development comes as a rescue for the developers, allowing you to write once and run anywhere. There are various frameworks that facilitate cross-platform application development such as React Native, Xamarin, Flutter, Ionic, etc.
Looking for the detailed efficacies of the frameworks to pick the best for you? Check out the following resources-
Why should you choose to React Native for your next Mobile Development Project?
Xamarin vs React Native: Which is Better?
Everything comes with a cost, so is the case with the cross-platform application development frameworks. Though the process is quite cost-effective, the performance of the application is compromised. If you are planning to build your application over a cross-platform development framework, the idea should be to pre-acquaint yourself with the variables liable for the cost-effectiveness and performance of a cross-development project.
Factors Responsible for the Cost-Effectiveness of Cross-Platform Development
The business always intends to make as much money as possible through its product and services. Hence, the cost-effectiveness of a product is considered as one of the crucial factors to be dealt with. The cost of developing a software or application relies on various factors such as development time, maintainability, resources required, etc. Let’s dig a little bit deeper to understand how these factors contribute to the cost-effectiveness of the project.
Reusable Component
One of the biggest advantages of cross-platform development is Code Reusability, liberating you from writing native code for every platform you are making your application for. As for native app development, if you want to develop an application on a different technology, you need to get trained in the required technology or else hire one for the same, which is a time-taking as well as a costly process.
The cross-platform development framework, on the flip side, proves to be extremely useful here, allowing you to reuse the existing components for the desired platform, thereby saving the resources as well as eliminating the cost of building it again from scratch.
Less Development Time
The cost of a project is directly proportional to the time consumed by the project. Cross-platform development allows you to directly convert a platform-specific code into the code compatible with the desired platform, considerably reducing the development time and making the project more cost-effective.
Low Maintenance Cost
According to Research2Guidance, the maintenance of a project accounts for more than 30% of the total cost of a project. In a cross-platform development, the maintenance cost of a project is comparatively low, as because of the common codebase it empowers you to code and debug the application for both the platform easily and at once.
Factors Responsible for the Low Performance of Cross-Platform Development
The performance of a product is the key to customer satisfaction and hence the long lasting business. A cross-platform development definitely proves to be quite cost-effective, however, if the performance of the application is considered, the cross-platform development lags behind. Let’s check out the factors responsible for the low performance of the application.
Compromised User Experience
UI(User Interface) and UX (User experience), an integral part of the website designing process, is one of the significant challenges faced in the cross-platform development process. A module may not give a similar response to every operating system on which it is executed, because of the varied configuration and different native code, thereby degrading the app performance.
Efficient designing and implementation can prove to be effective in cross-platform application development, creating an application that works incredibly over every device it is intended to work upon, regardless of their size and configuration.
Limited Tools and Features
A framework comes with a limited set of tools, therefore application customization becomes very challenging with the cross-development framework. Generally in such cases, a native application development framework opts for third-party libraries and SDKs. However, a cross-development framework lags here as some third-party libraries and SDKs cannot be used in the cross-development frameworks due to compatibility issues, thereby limiting the application features as well as debasing the application performance.
Sluggish Performance
The most common problem faced in cross-platform development is the sluggishness of the application, which can occur due to various reasons throughout the development process. The first and foremost reason is the idea itself is the use of single code for distinct platforms, leading to memory leaks which gradually slows down your application, dissatisfactory UI due to some cut edges(i.e. features), and a lot more.
As every OS responds uniquely to various software or hardware-related issues/activities, for example, garbage collection, gestures to go back on the window stack, etc, the use of the same code might create issues like rendering overhead, eventually leading to app slow down.
How to make your Cross-platform development effective and productive?
Cross-platform development, due to its numerous advantages, has become the most sought-after application development technique in the market. Cross-platform development has revolutionized the application development process, making it one of the most feasible approaches for the developers.
Are the performance issues of cross-platform development holding you back from opting for this cost-effective approach?
Customer retention depends on the quality of the product and services that a company offers. Hence, taking care of the performance of the application becomes extremely critical for the company’s reputation. Though Cross-platform development has some pitfalls, however, an Expert can liberate you from this problem and help you to develop a cost-effective application. So without further ado, Hire a cross-platform application developer and boost your business.
