A comparative analysis of cross-platform development approaches for mobile applications

Nowadays, native mobile applications (mobile apps) are targeted at specific mobile platforms. This phenomenon imposes severe constraints, such as the use of different development environments, technologies, and APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) for each mobile platform, leading inevitably to a waste of development time and effort, and an increased maintenance cost. The paper focuses on the current trends in developing cross-platform mobile apps. Our analysis focuses primarily on three areas. In the first place, we clarify the cross-platform development landscape by exploring the most important cross-platform app types, which are web, hybrid, interpreted and generated apps. Secondly, key issues for each app type are presented and a comparative analysis is performed to highlight the advantages and disadvantages of each type. Thirdly, taking into account the current status in cross-platform mobile app development we identify a promising cross-platform app type and we investigate its effectiveness in practice. Finally, we draw some conclusions regarding cross-platform mobile app development approaches and make proposals for further research on the field.