Introduction to Mobile App Development Minitrack

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Software Development for Mobile Computing, the Internet of Things and Wearable Devices: Inspecting the Past to Understand the Future

Currently a convergence in software development for mobile computing (including mobile devices and special technology such as wearables) and the Internet of Things (IoT) can be observed. Devices from the fields are becoming part of a joint ecosystem and share the same infrastructure. Moreover, development processes have changed and user requirements have become very heterogeneous. We have been studying this development for a while, also by offering the fitting HICSS minitrack. In this article, we look into the past of software development for mobile devices, in the context of IoT, and for wearables. We analyse joint characteristics and show differences. Then we invite to a discussion that leads to a research outlook. While neither for industry nor for academia the journey is over, the convergence of fields should offer many new possibilities, prevent problems we faced in the past, but also introduce novel challenges.publishedVersio

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

Data analysis as a service: an infrastructure for storing and analyzing the internet of things

As the Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming an increasingly trendy topic both for individuals, businesses and governments, the need for academically reviewed and developed prototypes focusing on certain aspects of IoT are increasing as well. Throughout this paper we propose an architecture and a technology stack for creating real-time applications focusing on time-series data generated by IoT devices. The architecture and technology stack are then implemented through a proof-of-concept prototype named Office Analysis as a Service, DaaS, a data-centric web application developed using Meteor. js and MongoDB. We also propose a data structure for storing time-series data in a MongoDB document for optimal query performance of large datasets. One common research challenge in the IoT, security, is considered only briefly, and is of utmost importance in future research

An Empirical Investigation of Performance Overhead in Cross-Platform Mobile Development Frameworks

The heterogeneity of the leading mobile platforms in terms of user interfaces, user experience, programming language, and ecosystem have made cross-platform development frameworks popular. These aid the creation of mobile applications – apps – that can be executed across the target platforms (typically Android and iOS) with minimal to no platform-specific code. Due to the cost- and time-saving possibilities introduced through adopting such a framework, researchers and practitioners alike have taken an interest in the underlying technologies. Examining the body of knowledge, we, nonetheless, frequently encounter discussions on the drawbacks of these frameworks, especially with regard to the performance of the apps they generate. Motivated by the ongoing discourse and a lack of empirical evidence, we scrutinised the essential piece of the cross-platform frameworks: the bridge enabling cross-platform code to communicate with the underlying operating system and device hardware APIs. The study we present in the article benchmarks and measures the performance of this bridge to reveal its associated overhead in Android apps. The development of the artifacts for this experiment was conducted using five cross-platform development frameworks to generate Android apps, in addition to a baseline native Android app implementation. Our results indicate that – for Android apps – the use of cross-platform frameworks for the development of mobile apps may lead to decreased performance compared to the native development approach. Nevertheless, certain cross-platform frameworks can perform equally well or even better than native on certain metrics which highlights the importance of well-defined technical requirements and specifications for deliberate selection of a cross-platform framework or overall development approach.publishedVersio

The Use of Cross-Platform Frameworks for Google Play Store Apps

In this paper, we describe the harnessing and analyses of a large sample (n = 661705) of Android apps and associated metadata available on the Google Play Store. The analyses and scrutiny are in the context of cross-platform mobile development, as we report on the technologies used to develop apps for the Android ecosystem. Specifically, we quantify the use of 13 technical frameworks for cross-platform development, identify their distribution across Google Play Store categories, present an overview of framework usage from 2008 to 2019, app file size (.apk size), and lastly discuss our findings in the context of current industry trends and directions. Our findings indicate that cross-platform apps account for approximately 15% (n = 99304) of the dataset, and that all overarching development approaches are present

An empirical investigation of performance overhead in cross-platform mobile development frameworks

The heterogeneity of the leading mobile platforms in terms of user interfaces, user experience, programming language, and ecosystem have made cross-platform development frameworks popular. These aid the creation of mobile applications – apps – that can be executed across the target platforms (typically Android and iOS) with minimal to no platform-specific code. Due to the cost- and time-saving possibilities introduced through adopting such a framework, researchers and practitioners alike have taken an interest in the underlying technologies. Examining the body of knowledge, we, nonetheless, frequently encounter discussions on the drawbacks of these frameworks, especially with regard to the performance of the apps they generate. Motivated by the ongoing discourse and a lack of empirical evidence, we scrutinised the essential piece of the cross-platform frameworks: the bridge enabling cross-platform code to communicate with the underlying operating system and device hardware APIs. The study we present in the article benchmarks and measures the performance of this bridge to reveal its associated overhead in Android apps. The development of the artifacts for this experiment was conducted using five cross-platform development frameworks to generate Android apps, in addition to a baseline native Android app implementation. Our results indicate that – for Android apps – the use of cross-platform frameworks for the development of mobile apps may lead to decreased performance compared to the native development approach. Nevertheless, certain cross-platform frameworks can perform equally well or even better than native on certain metrics which highlights the importance of well-defined technical requirements and specifications for deliberate selection of a cross-platform framework or overall development approach

An Empirical Study of Cross-Platform Mobile Development in Industry

The purpose of this study is to report on the industry’s perspectives and opinions on cross-platform mobile development, with an emphasis on the popularity, adoption, and arising issues related to the use of technical development frameworks and tools. We designed and conducted an online survey questionnaire, for which 101 participants were recruited from various developer-oriented online forums and websites. A total of five questions are reported in this study, of which two employed a Likert scale instrument, while three were based on multiple choice. In terms of technical frameworks, we find that PhoneGap, the Ionic Framework, and React Native were the most popular in use, both in hobby projects and in professional settings. The participants report an awareness of trade-offs when embracing cross-platform technologies and consider penalties in performance and user experience to be expected. This is also in line with what is reported in academic research. We find patterns in the reported perceived issues which match both older and newer research, thus rendering the findings a point of departure for further endevours

GMM estimation of a structural demand model for yogurt and the effects of the introduction of new brands

Nested logit, GMM, Yogurt, Instrumental variables, New products,