Most of us are aware of the overwhelming number of mobile users among us. A recent study found that the average person spends more than four hours daily using various smartphone apps. That’s just the U.S.; in other areas, everyday app usage was believed to be even higher.
All indicators point to continued growth. More than a decade ago, when Apple introduced its iOS App Store, it only offered access to 500 apps. Current estimates put the figure closer to 2 million, with Google Play Store exceeding the 2.5 million mark some time ago.
There are a lot of apps available, yet people still want more. Business owners are under intense pressure to develop innovative digital products with the features and capabilities desired by the general audience. On the other hand, developers are accountable for making apps for smartphones that live up to users’ ever-rising standards.
Why Cross-Platform Mobile App Development?
In all honesty, nobody has to tell you that making apps for mobile devices may be a rewarding career. Analysts predict that by 2022, the mobile application business will generate more than $500 billion in sales. Many technological developments, like the ability to write apps for multiple platforms, contributed to this expansion.
The cross-platform app’s unique features made many new opportunities and advantages available. The most compelling arguments that favor adopting a cross-platform approach to mobile application development are listed below.
The Ability To Reuse Code
As a result of the cross-platform app development architecture, programmers can utilize a single code base that is portable across several systems. Instead of being platform-oriented, relying on a shared code base streamlines the application development life cycle by eliminating redundant processes. Developing several operating systems and learning to use the various app development tools needed to support all mobile devices are just two of the daily obstacles it helps developers overcome. With a single, shared code base, you can fix errors and add features for every platform at once.
Cost Cutting
For native development, businesses need to staff up with individuals who bring unique sets of expertise and set aside a sizable budget to handle creating apps for various platforms. With a cross-platform framework, however, you can use the same tools and personnel to develop for both platforms, cutting down on costs and increasing productivity. Finding and training highly talented developers is a time-consuming and expensive process. When designing an app for several outlets, you only need one team of developers, which might lower your budget for the app by half.
Most cross-platform frameworks use JavaScript-based frameworks like React Native, which are simple for most developers to pick up. This frees software engineers from the burden of learning OS-specific programming languages and app development tools. The time and money needed to build new features or fix existing bugs are reduced when the source code is reused. In addition, developing many platforms simultaneously saves time and money when exploring a new market and learning which platform would be most beneficial to your business.
Time-To-Market And Application Development Can Be Accelerated
Customers have high expectations that a company would provide a unified and consistent user experience across all channels where they engage with the brand and its products and services. To put it another way, they try to find the easiest option. Your customers might only go elsewhere if you can deliver on that promise. Furthermore, consumers’ preferences shift in the blink of an eye. Companies must think like their customers and react quickly to changing market conditions.
Cross-platform app development can shorten the time it takes to bring a product to market because it uses a single code base. The development cycle can be cut down significantly by using frameworks like React Native or Flutter to speed up the building and releasing of applications.
You may improve your company’s reputation as a trustworthy, customer-centric entity and show that you care more about your customers’ opinions and market needs by doing so. Support and upkeep costs for cross-platform apps are lower. Instead of employing several support teams for each program, updates and bug fixes may be synced and distributed to all devices, irrespective of the operating system.
Conformity in Branding
Users place a premium on a consistent, high-quality brand experience across all interaction channels. It’s much more work to ensure your iOS and Android apps look and feel the same. Using the same user interface and user experience components that can deliver a native app experience, cross-platform app development makes it much faster to create a consistent brand image and experience. You can reassure your clients that your business is genuine and trustworthy by maintaining a consistent brand image and engagement across all platforms, even though the navigation will stay different.
Increased Market Penetration
To increase exposure, release your app on numerous platforms. Given that Android and iOS together make up 98% of the mobile OS landscape, it’s clear that a widely supported app will have a significantly more significant effect on your company’s bottom line than an OS-specific app.
Thanks to cross-platform app development, you may release your application on multiple platforms, reaching a larger audience. Today, there are 3.5 billion smartphone users across the globe. Compared to Android’s 74.43 percent use share, iOS only powers about 24.9 percent of these mobile devices. It’s a question of expanding your potential for gain. While useful, a single native app limits your reach to a small subset of your target audience. However, if your software is cross-platform, you’ll be able to reach a much larger audience, which will increase brand loyalty, solidify your position in the market, and benefit your bottom line.
Conclusion
With cross-platform app development, your company may reap the benefits and boost its productivity. Increase your long-term profits by putting more energy into product innovation and customer value creation without worrying about managing a time-consuming development process.
Contact Diligent Global today for a FREE CONSULTATION about your mobile application development project, no matter where your business or organization may be located.