Effective fully-native multi-platform app development

Hype and excitement around cross-platform app development has never gone away. It seems to go in cycles: some big industry player releases a new framework which creates a lot of buzz, then it dies down slightly, only for another new framework to gain traction.

They all seek to let developers maximise reach and minimise development costs.

Efficient and innovative cross-platform development has always been important to us at Future Platforms; the “Kirin” model – shared application code running on both iOS and Android (but with separate UI) – has been pivotal to complex apps we have delivered for Domino’s Pizza, Glastonbury and Wembley.

We have always placed a high value on the benefits of this approach: time and effort saved by not solving problems twice over, with associated reduced costs of ownership and maintenance. The approach also ensures a single, consistent interpretation of client requirements, and therefore an equally good user experience across platforms.

But choosing to use a cross-platform approach for your app can be a risky decision. Frameworks such as React Native and Flutter add an additional layer between the developer and the machine, making it harder to diagnose any issues you run into (is this a bug in the framework, or am I just using it wrongly?). They also require the use of languages which are not otherwise used on mobile; JavaScript for React Native, Dart for Flutter, and C# for Xamarin.

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