A case study on cross-platform development frameworks for mobile applications and UX

Cross-platform development frameworks for mobile applications promise important advantages in cost cuttings and easy maintenance, posing as a very good option for organizations interested in the design of mobile applications for several platforms. Given that platform conventions are especially important for the User eXperience (UX) of mobile applications, the usage of a framework where the same code defines the behavior of the app in different platforms could have a negative impact in the UX. This paper describes a study where two independent teams have designed two different versions of a mobile application, one using a framework that generates Android and iOS versions automatically, and another team using native tools. The alternative versions for each platform have been evaluated with 37 users with a combination of a laboratory usability test and a longitudinal study. The results show that differences are minimal in the Android platform, but in iOS, even if a reasonably good UX can be obtained with the usage of this framework by an UX-conscious design team, a higher level of UX can be obtained directly developing with a native tool

Mobile application platform selection

Abstract. Native and web apps have their own advantages and disadvantages in the field of mobile app industry. This fact has forced industry to make reforms and develop new tools and technologies to mitigate the disadvantages by both platform types. Different cross-platform development approaches have lowered the costs of developing apps to multiple different platforms and progressive web apps (PWA) have improved efficiency and user experience for web apps. This thesis strives to clarify the selection, which platform or approach the company should choose for their upcoming app. This is done by finding the properties and requirements found important by shareholders and finding out how capable platform/approach is meeting with the properties

Baseline Requirements for Comparative Research on Cross-Platform Mobile Development: A Literature Survey

Technical implementations are common in computing research to objectively assess hypotheses. In mobile computing, and more specifically within research on cross-platform mobile development, such implementations are usually in the form of mobile apps. Due to the lack of a common ground for research on app development, studies tend to lack depth and miss out on possible contributions. In an attempt to better the situation, we propose a technical baseline for future research on cross-platform app development to draw from based on previous studies’ technical implementations. We assess and scrutinize existing literature to find trends, and use the generated knowledge to lay out the baseline proposa

Comprehensive Analysis of Innovative Cross-Platform App Development Frameworks

Mobile apps are increasingly realized by using a cross-platform development framework. Using such frameworks, code is written once but the app can be deployed to multiple platforms. Despite progress in research on cross-platform techniques, results (i.e. apps) are not always satisfactory. They are subject to tedious tailoring and the development effort tends to be notable. In these cases, either pure web apps (realized through web browsers) or native apps (realized for each platform separately) are chosen. Recent activities have led to new approaches. In this paper, we have a closer look at three of these, namely React Native, the Ionic Framework, and Fuse. We present a comprehensive analysis of the three approaches. Our work is based on a real-world use case, which allows us to provide generalizable advice. Our findings suggest that there is no clear winner; the frameworks incorporate notable ideas and general progress in the field can be asserted

Overcoming Language Dichotomies: Toward Effective Program Comprehension for Mobile App Development

Mobile devices and platforms have become an established target for modern software developers due to performant hardware and a large and growing user base numbering in the billions. Despite their popularity, the software development process for mobile apps comes with a set of unique, domain-specific challenges rooted in program comprehension. Many of these challenges stem from developer difficulties in reasoning about different representations of a program, a phenomenon we define as a "language dichotomy". In this paper, we reflect upon the various language dichotomies that contribute to open problems in program comprehension and development for mobile apps. Furthermore, to help guide the research community towards effective solutions for these problems, we provide a roadmap of directions for future work.Comment: Invited Keynote Paper for the 26th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Program Comprehension (ICPC'18

Progressive Web Apps: the Definite Approach to Cross-Platform Development?

Although development practices for apps have matured, cross-platform development remains a prominent topic. Typically, apps should always support both Android and iOS devices. They ought to run smoothly on various hardware, and be compatible with a host of platform versions. Additionally, device categories beyond smartphone and tablets have emerged, which makes multi-platform support even trickier. Truly developing an app once and serving the multitude of possible targets remains an issue despite having cross-platform frameworks that are acknowledged by practice and research. The technology unifier remains to be found, but Progressive Web Apps (PWA) might be a step towards it. In this paper, we analyse the foundations of PWAs in cross-platform development and scrutinize the status quo of current possibilities. Based on our observations, we investigate unified development, and discuss open questions. We seek to stimulate interest and narrow the immense gap that has arisen since industry started to embrace PWAs

Automating Software Development for Mobile Computing Platforms

Mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets have become ubiquitous in today\u27s computing landscape. These devices have ushered in entirely new populations of users, and mobile operating systems are now outpacing more traditional desktop systems in terms of market share. The applications that run on these mobile devices (often referred to as apps ) have become a primary means of computing for millions of users and, as such, have garnered immense developer interest. These apps allow for unique, personal software experiences through touch-based UIs and a complex assortment of sensors. However, designing and implementing high quality mobile apps can be a difficult process. This is primarily due to challenges unique to mobile development including change-prone APIs and platform fragmentation, just to name a few. in this dissertation we develop techniques that aid developers in overcoming these challenges by automating and improving current software design and testing practices for mobile apps. More specifically, we first introduce a technique, called Gvt, that improves the quality of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for mobile apps by automatically detecting instances where a GUI was not implemented to its intended specifications. Gvt does this by constructing hierarchal models of mobile GUIs from metadata associated with both graphical mock-ups (i.e., created by designers using photo-editing software) and running instances of the GUI from the corresponding implementation. Second, we develop an approach that completely automates prototyping of GUIs for mobile apps. This approach, called ReDraw, is able to transform an image of a mobile app GUI into runnable code by detecting discrete GUI-components using computer vision techniques, classifying these components into proper functional categories (e.g., button, dropdown menu) using a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), and assembling these components into realistic code. Finally, we design a novel approach for automated testing of mobile apps, called CrashScope, that explores a given android app using systematic input generation with the intrinsic goal of triggering crashes. The GUI-based input generation engine is driven by a combination of static and dynamic analyses that create a model of an app\u27s GUI and targets common, empirically derived root causes of crashes in android apps. We illustrate that the techniques presented in this dissertation represent significant advancements in mobile development processes through a series of empirical investigations, user studies, and industrial case studies that demonstrate the effectiveness of these approaches and the benefit they provide developers

From native to cross-platform hybrid development : CodeGT, design and development of a mobile app for ERP

The current trend towards mobility of individuals, together with the exponential growth of the number of mobile devices led the market to a boom in the demand for the development of mobile applications. Moreover, with the expansion and heterogeneity of the mobile devices and platforms, software companies need to search for faster and cheaper ways to develop applications that can span as many devices as possible to capture the market. Currently, the Android and iOS Operating Systems roughly share and dominate the mobile market, with timid expressions of other competitors. Each of these mobile operating systems were developed using their own languages, strategy and SDKs for development of applications using their libraries – known as Native apps. On the other hand, the evolution of HTML5, CSS and JavaScript created generic alternatives to create mobile apps that run on devices on all operating systems, although lacking the capability to access the device’s full potential. Alongside came the new Hybrid cross-platform development frameworks, which try to take the best of both worlds. This dissertation describes the evolution of the different mobile app development approaches and the state-of-the-art in their development techniques, and compares them with the Hybrid app approach, then highlighting the trends in mobile app development using Hybrid platforms and their advantages. This research includes the development of a mobile Hybrid application, CodeGT, which interacts with an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) to access the Transport Documents registered in this ERP and access to the code transmitted by the Portuguese Tax Authority (AT), therefore not requiring the printing of documents and meeting a need of the business market. This application does already have customer industry companies interested in it.As tendências atuais em direção à grande mobilidade dos indivíduos, juntamente com o crescimento exponencial do número de dispositivos móveis, levaram ao enorme crescimento na procura do desenvolvimento de aplicações móveis. Além disso, com a expansão e heterogeneidade dos dispositivos e das plataformas móveis, as empresas de desenvolvimento de software necessitam de encontrar formas mais rápidas e baratas de desenvolver aplicações capazes de abranger o maior número de dispositivos para ir ao encontro da elevada procura do mercado. Atualmente, os sistemas operativos Android e iOS dividem e dominam o mercado de dispositivos móveis com expressões tímidas de outros concorrentes. Cada um desses sistemas operativos móveis foi desenvolvido especificamente para linguagens de programação e estratégias próprias e oferecem um conjunto de ferramentas de desenvolvimento com as suas bibliotecas, para a criação de aplicações nativas. Por outro lado, a evolução do HTML5, CSS e do JavaScript criaram oportunidades para o surgimento de alternativas genéricas para criação de aplicações multiplataforma que correm em todos os dispositivos e em todos os sistemas operativos, mas sem a capacidade de aceder todo o potencial nativo do dispositivo. Paralelamente surgiram as novas plataformas de desenvolvimento híbridas, que tentam tirar o melhor partido dos dois mundos. Esta dissertação descreve a evolução das diferentes abordagens no desenvolvimento de aplicações móveis mais concretamente na utilização de ferramentas multiplataformas para a criação de aplicações móveis híbridas e as suas vantagens. A pesquisa incluiu ainda o desenvolvimento de uma aplicação móvel, CodeGT, desenvolvido numa plataforma híbrida para interagir com um software ERP, acedendo aos Documentos de Transporte registados nesse ERP, assim como ao código transmitido pela Autoridade Tributária (AT), que assim dispensa a impressão de documentos e indo ao encontro de uma necessidade do mercado. Esta aplicação já tem empresas clientes interessadas nela