Everything you need to know about cross platform app development

The days of consumers sticking to a particular device are long gone.

With 61% of UK consumers accessing the internet on both computers and mobile devices (compared to 10% who only access the internet via smartphone), cross platform app development is now essential for reaching users across multiple touchpoints.

With cross platform apps, you can create a single piece of source code and use it to develop applications that can run on multiple operating systems. You can also ensure that you reach your target audience on their preferred device.

This is preferable to a native app approach, as you don’t need to develop an app that’s limited to a specific operating system; you can simply build one app that you distribute across multiple platforms.

In this article, we’re going to look at why cross platform apps are important, what platforms you can develop an app for, and the top frameworks for developing them.

Why is cross platform app development important?

Developing a cross platform app is important because it allows you to build an app that you can use to reach customers on multiple platforms and communicate with the widest possible customer base.

Cross platform apps aren’t restricted to a single platform or OS, which means users from all types of devices and OS’s can access them.

Some of the platforms you can build cross platform apps for include the following:

Web – Applications that are available in web browsers such as Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Edge.

Desktop – Applications that are available on desktop computers running on Windows, Mac OS and Linux.

Android – Mobile applications that are available for smartphone users on Android devices.

iOS – Mobile applications that are available on iPhones and iPads that use iOS.

At the same time, developing a cross platform app is also the most cost-effective way of building apps for multiple devices. This is because you can write the source code once to cover all platforms, rather than writing unique code for each platform or device.

Reusing the source code also has the added advantage of speeding up the development process, as the developer has less code to write for a cross platform app than they would if they were writing to produce multiple native apps. This consequently reduces the overall time to market.

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