By 2022, Native Mobile Application Development Method Will Be a Competitive Disadvantage

It's Not Too Late to Switch Now

📅 2021.10.20 - 👤 Borbély Viktor

source: Pixabay / stevepb

The fierce battle between the two major mobile platform giants, Google and Apple, is visible. Each strives for dominance, but they outperform each other in different markets. The battle rages more under the surface, but as a company owner, you must meet both markets. Moreover, quickly, if we want to gain users. Keeping development costs under control is further complicated by the fact that Huawei also came out with its own platform. Thus, the space becomes multi-player again.

How does the market stand with mobile platforms?

Since Apple came out with touch-screen mobiles in 2007, and Google followed the next year, an era began. Mobile apps were born. Then Microsoft also joined as the third among the big ones with Windows Phone, but it has since become extinct.

Who would dare to join the big ones today? Huawei took it on out of necessity. Although it has a sufficiently large market, success is still not guaranteed. In 2021, Huawei officially introduced Harmony OS, first on the Huawei P50 series.

Of course, this cannot be called a trend that additional platforms are expected, but in any case, it’s worth preparing for this rare event from time to time. And as a mobile developer, adapt to the requirements.

What is the new method in the field of mobile application development?

Cross-platform development is not an invention of this year, but it can perhaps be said that it has gained great momentum. The reason for this is that the number of digital products continues to grow, but there are not enough professionals to create them. Today, a team of 10-30 people is needed to produce a significant application: architect, developer, tester, UX/UI researcher, Business Analyst (BA), PO/PM, etc.

It’s understandable that if costs can be cut even a little in each area, the business gains an advantage. The cross-platform mobile application development method lies precisely in this:

Write once, use multiple times.

Don’t have two different teams working on the same solution, duplicating the same work. This is indeed the disadvantage of native development. Moreover, it is often a subject of debate which team’s solution is good. Which should remain? Not to mention the speed between developments, which pushes the deadlines of individual releases further and further away.

This method of mobile development was recognized earlier, and in recent times, quality frameworks have come to the forefront. Among these, React Native and Flutter are outstanding, dominating the developers’ market.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of cross-platform?

Advantages:

  • cost-effective: appearing on a new platform does not mean twice as much time investment
  • from the design stage, you can think in a common solution, and only in a few places is it necessary to take into account platform differences (fingerprint reader vs face recognition; GPS settings; other permission requests; etc.)
  • fault-tolerant: a good framework evolves together with Google or Apple’s operating system, responding quickly to it
  • support: enjoy the benefits provided by the huge developer community
  • unified appearance on all platforms
  • the same team writes the code, thereby greater cohesion

Disadvantages:

  • special technologies, mainly built on the device’s hardware elements, are not or not fully utilized by a framework
  • the usual platform user interfaces may disappear
  • a new language must be learned, which costs the company time/money

It can be seen that the cross-platform method in mobile application development clearly has an advantage.

Is there another solution?

In addition to all these, the increasingly widespread low-code or no-code method deserves mention. This is about not requiring programming development knowledge to create an application. The framework supports the heavy work, and anyone can do it with a “click-together” method.

These methods are preferably used by young teams in the startup phase who want to quickly test their concept with a mobile-first solution.

Programming or system organizing knowledge can be of great use to “developers” with these tools, because it’s also true here: a good plan is half the success. Abstract thinking is needed for the final product to be good.

Time will tell how mature these low-code tools are.

Extra twist that only Flutter can do

Of course, the number of developers is not a problem only in the field of mobile application development.

In addition to mobile platforms, Google also helps the sought-after FrontEnd profession by developing Flutter Web. Anyone who was previously a mobile developer or backend server-side developer can thus create web applications (PWA) running in a browser.

But Flutter didn’t stop here, but you can also create natively runnable applications for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS. All this with the usual attractive appearance and optimized for performance.

The cross-platform method presented above should be applied as soon as possible in mobile app development projects. Of course, not only there!

If you’re still uncertain, have questions, don’t know how to start, then contact me through one of my contacts.

I’m happy to discuss the possibilities and your needs with you. If needed, I’ll start the project, working together with your existing team.