Cross Platform Application, Its Benefits & Disadvantages

Having a website and mobile app for your business is a must have thing in the era of online and eCommerce market. With the technical advancement, web developers have to offer cross platform applications that can support multiple platforms within a single code. Now the question comes what is cross-platform application? Have a look:

Cross platform applications

Cross platform application framework is an ability to develop web and mobile applications for several competing platforms. It enables the programmer to develop or write the programmer only once and utilize it for different platforms & multiple times. Cross platform applications can run on all platforms with little or no modifications. It offers ios, Microsoft, Windows, BlackBerry as well as Android app development services. But it too has different benefits and disadvantages, some of these are listed below:

Pros

Code Is Reusable: The developer doesn’t need to write code specifically for each program, the code is reusable with, little and no modification.

Plugins: Availability of different platforms including Appcelerator, PhoneGap provide easy access to modules and plugins that can be switched into multiple services and tools.

Easy for Web Developers: Due to the dynamic and scripting nature of different frameworks, it is easy for the developers to write code, jump in and use. To call native functions, most of the frameworks support HTML5 and CSS3.

Reduced Development Costs: It is the most advantageous factor as it offers the companies and brands to switch any app to multiple platform and you don’t need to involve any specific team of developers.

Enterprise and Cloud Service support: Most of the frameworks have direct access with the cloud services.  

Cons

Not all features are supported of Operating System or Device:   Google, Apple or Microsoft adds new features to update new requirements so you need to update framework to support all new additions.

You won’t be able to use your own tools: Most of the frameworks demands from user to use their own development tools but in this context, the user own IDE preferences but PhoneGap is different and to support each platform it uses native IDE preferences.  

Speed of code must be affected: Compilation process has been noticed slower in cross platform applications.

Limitation in Graphics and 3D Support:  3D support and high end graphics’ utilization is limited.
Most of the cross platform frameworks developed using their own subsets of JavaScript.

Essential Skills to Become an Android App Developer

When you begin to think about developing websites & mobile apps at your own, you need to establish deep knowledge of programming. Better designing & developing skills can lead you to the top of developing technology. But before everything, you need to decide specific platform in which you want to develop skills, for example- Android app development. If you are approaching a new technology for the first time then you should break the learning process into different sections.

If you are already a developer and familiar with web development then many of the technologies & concepts are similar to Android mobile app development. Although, developing apps for mobile devices demands refined knowledge of different concepts.

The developer needs to be flexible with the code because mobile screens are smaller in size and availability of different manufacturers in the market. They need to develop mobile apps according to variety of user scenarios. Here’s what you need to know to become an Android app developer:

Java

Java is most essential to begin with android development as it underpins all basic concepts for the ones’ who have coding experience in Ruby & JavaScript. While picking up the Java there can be a learning curve like Java is object oriented but at some extent it is disciplined with handling of data types. In Java, you will end up writing less code that is precise & elegant as well.

 XML

Learning and mastering XML skills are essential for Android app developers. XML stands for standard mark-up language that is sharing features similar to HTML. It was developed as a standard way to encode data for internet based applications. XML is used by Android developers to create layouts that deliver foundation UI definition for Android applications.

Android SDK

SDK, stands for software development tool kit, is a set of pre packaged code. These are Java code modules that provide access to device functionalities to developers.

Android Studio

IDE (Integrated Development Environment) is considered as Android Studio for developers. It features many functionalities of featured IDE which a programmer expects.

APIs

APIs offers a way to connect with third party services through Android apps. For example: you can use Google APIs to trace the location.

Databases

Java offers to access data outside the phone like you dot need to store everything on phone instead you can access the database through cloud services. Likely, it also supports SQL to interact with SQLite database.

You should also learn material design i.e. a set of forward thinking interface guidelines for an app. Develop an Android application that users actually find useful. 

Best Learning apps for Android Smart Phones

Technology has been fulfilling the ease of learning and breaking the stereotypes which stop people from educating and gaining knowledge by themselves. The android app development services featuring the mobile phones with the smart & interactive way of educating people. It is quite interesting as well as attractive to use an app for learning any language, study related content, art, music, technology and other activities. People will find themselves able to learn whatever they want to, by accessing a single device.

It is always recommended to join institutions and learn from professionally qualified & experienced teachers and take quality education. So it should be clear to you all that these apps are just study supplements when you can’t opt for formal education due to any reason. You can use your smart phone or tablet to learn from anywhere & anytime. Ad when you don’t have any goal set then you can have look on these apps:

Duolingo

Duolingo has been launched in 2014 and never looked back. This app facilitates the user to learn multiple languages with the ease of tiny & interactive sessions combined with games. As further you move the lessons become harder but you will have fun with every level. The app supports dozens of languages. According to professional android application developers, investing 34 hours in the app is equivalent to studying a semester. It’s freely available so have a try.

Lynda

Lynda app has focused on work oriented skills and technology. The app allows you to learn website designing, developing, coding, website building, M S Office skills and producing music for recording. This app is highly effective as well as expensive.

PhotoMath

 Only name is enough to describe its functionalities, it enables you to solve mathematics-related problems. The app uses your phone’s camera and OCR technique to read the problem you have write down. Later it will identify the issue and generate result. The most usable feature, it provides you step by step procedure that how it come up with the result.

SoloLearn

It is a developer on Google Play platform and offers multiple learning apps that teach computer programming. It supports many common languages like C ++, Java etc., web languages like HTML and more advanced languages like Python. each language is associated with specific app that is completely free.

This list combines a number of learning apps. You can also search for more apps which are of your interests.