Challenges Associated With Cross-Platform Mobile App Development

Today, users expect a seamless experience across devices and platforms. But this is a major challenge for app developers to build apps that look and function the same way everywhere. That’s because every platform or device is different. iPhone is not the same as Android. Chrome differs from Safari. Mac and Windows work differently.

And while developing one such allround application, developers have to ensure that it caters to different platforms and operating systems, different screen sizes, and take into account several other factors to maintain a similar user experience everywhere. This is what cross-platform application development is all about.

Cross-platform app development refers to building applications that can run across platforms. So, unlike native apps where apps are coded differently for different platforms, cross-platform apps make use of a single codebase, and that code is shared between multiple platforms. Yes, it does save time and cost but also tags along several performance and usability issues with it.

Cross-Platform App Development Challenges

Cross-platform mobile app development technology has gained a lot of traction and popularity in recent years. Many startups and SMEs are leveraging the potential of cross-platform development to build applications in a relatively lesser time span- one of the primary motives behind the introduction of this technology. There’s no denying that cross-platform development is a boon to those entrepreneurs who don’t want to invest in native app development or want the app to be built and delivered quickly. But there are also certain challenges and drawbacks associated with it.

Also Read: Why Hybrid Apps are overtaking Native Apps?

One of the major challenges in creating a multi-platform application is managing the codebase. Generally, every platform calls for a unique code, and thus the development time also varies for different platforms (speaking of native apps). Though now there are certain tools and frameworks that let you create one version for multiple platforms, this approach comprises a few limitations. That’s because it is not customized for each and every device. The application built using this approach still doesn’t have complete access to all the features of its runtime environment. You’re also dependent on the third-party code to get integrated with a specific platform and have to check out for the bugs in their implementation and work around them.

There are a few cross-platform environments that use standard tools like JavaScript, but depending on how they receive the cross-platform support, working with a cross-platform tool might keep you bound with that third-party’s products for all future development requirements. This can later turn out to be an issue if the APIs and custom plug-ins aren’t widespread among the developers’ community or require a specific skill. In worst-case scenarios, it’s also possible that the vendor shuts his business and isn’t associated with the product anymore.

Also Read: Choosing the Best JavaScript Framework Between Vue and React

Let’s take a look at some other drawbacks of cross-platform app development.

1. Switching Between Platforms

A majority of the cross-platform frameworks use their JavaScript subject. This often creates some issues while using the reusable codes. Finding those issues in the entire codebase is an arduous task that exceeds the expected development time and budget.

2. Delayed and Limited Updates

Cross-platform development frameworks are slow to adapt to OS updates. It is expected that the development tools of the framework must adapt to the new features and capabilities of the OSes as they evolve, however, this process is usually very slow.

Moreover, a cross-platform framework doesn’t support all the features of a particular operating system, or you can say some features may not be compatible with a particular framework to operate seamlessly.

3. Lacklustre Performance

Performance-wise, cross-platform apps aren’t that impressive. There are plenty of reasons behind it. There is limited hardware integration, which means they do not possess the ability to interact with the device’s hardware like a native app does, which is obvious as cross-platform apps cater to different platforms. The inconsistent communication between the native device and the non-native components also affects the application’s performance.

4. Sluggish Code

It can be a bit daunting especially for novice developers to use cross-platform application development, as it isn’t as easy as it may seem. Developers use the compliance process during the development process which results in sluggish code and apparently leads to a low-performant application.

5. Poor UI/UX

Cross-platform apps aren’t also suitable for apps that demand rich UI/UX. Native apps should be the ultimate choice in this case as they are designed keeping in mind the platform-specific design guidelines and can take advantage of the device’s complete hardware. Unfortunately, cross-platform apps lag in this segment and thus do not offer a rich UI/UX experience.

This is because each device has its own characteristics, and thus it gets quite difficult to build an application that provides the same functionality with a single codebase.

Conclusion

Cross-platform applications do carry some limitations such as the inability to access the full power of the platform. If these limitations can be reduced in the future, mobile apps will truly realize the developers’ dream of “write once, run anywhere”. It still is an awesome technology for startups and SMEs to boost their brand visibility without investing heavily in native app development.

But before you pick the cross-platform app development technology, make sure you are aware of these challenges that we discussed.