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Five Steps for the Cross-Platform App Development Strategy

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Kristi Ray
Five Steps for the Cross-Platform App Development Strategy

The core concepts behind cross-platform app development are pretty straightforward: Create an app that can work on multiple platforms, rather than just one, like iOS or Android or Windows Phone. Having such an app available to your users means that no matter what kind of mobile device they have, they'll be able to access your content, services, and products from their phone or tablet. If you want to create a cross-platform app, there are some essential steps you should follow, based on the advice of tech industry experts and the results of surveys run by leading software companies in the field of digital technology.


Clear Requirement and Budget of Project

It is a first step for you to determine what you are actually looking for. This may seem simple and easy, but it is often more challenging than it sounds. Be crystal clear about your requirement. What do you exactly want from a cross-platform app development company? Write down all your requirements in point form. Once done, prioritize them and share your requirement with the developer to understand the need, and you will be free till the final release.


Target Market

To make your cross-platform strategy work, you must first determine your target market. The process of creating a full ecosystem for two or more platforms requires a large time investment and will be more expensive than if you were to develop just one app. For that reason, it's important to create an app that will appeal to a broad customer base. Don't be tempted to create one app that satisfies both iOS and Android users if only 15% of your total audience uses both platforms.


Code Reusability

Reusing code is one of our main objectives for any app development. Reusing an existing piece of code (instead of writing a new one) can save you months or even years down the road in terms of cost and time management. But we're not just talking about snippets or libraries here; we're talking about entire screens, navigations schemes, tables, and views.


Prototyping

The first step in planning your cross-platform app development strategy is to create a prototype. Prototyping allows you to understand how your app might perform in certain scenarios. It can also help you uncover any potential flaws before development gets too far along. It's common to build prototypes in an agile fashion to be updated as more information comes in.


Top Frameworks: You have to consider native support, community, and development cost when looking at different platforms. Here's a list of top frameworks that you can choose from: 

React Native, 

Kotlin

Flutter

PhoneGap

Titanium

Xamarin


All these frameworks are extremely helpful in cross-platform app development, specially kotlin. Kotlin is the new cross-platform programming language from JetBrains that targets Java Virtual Machine. Developers can use Kotlin to develop Android apps, although it's possible to build other applications using Kotlin. Although Kotlin is a relatively new platform, it has shown a lot of promise in its first year; even you can hire a kotlin developer if you need to build a fast project for cross-platform.


This guide takes you through everything you need to know about using cross-platform as part of your app development strategy. But every framework have pros and cons, which makes it a little hard to choose one that works best for your need. So before deciding on any of them, you should consider your goals and what exactly you want out of your app development project.


Conclusion:

Developers have plenty of choices for building cross-platform apps, from frameworks like Ionic, Cordova, and React Native to hybrid mobile app builders like Flutter.js. However, each approach offers its own set of benefits and tradeoffs. That's why it's important to consider your company's individual needs in choosing a cross-platform development strategy that aligns with your business goals and technical preferences.


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