What are the Challenges & Solutions While Developing Cross-Platform Mobile Apps?

According to the latest reports by VentureBeat,

Mobile applications are projected to generate $189 billion in revenues in 2022.

Sounds astounding, isn’t it?

What’s more impressive is that all this is happening despite the effect of the Coronavirus pandemic. Such high revenue is due to smartphone proliferation, ample time spent on mobile apps, and constant increase in app numbers.

Today, online visibility has become a necessity rather than an alternative. So, if you’re a startup or an established business who is looking forward to building an app to enter the digital paradigm, the very first question that hits the mind is:

Native or cross-platform?

Earlier, business owners spend ample time and cost building engaging and responsive native solutions to capture the leading market. But, over time, cross-platform mobile app development gained massive acceptance amongst the startups, businesses, and SMEs who want to build apps at lower cost and reach a mass audience.

The increasing demand for mobile applications in each sector sparked the concept of reducing development time and cost and leveraging user-friendly and engaging apps, and that’s how cross-platform solutions for mobile app development came into existence.

With multiple cross-platform frameworks available in the market, each offering compelling features, we often overlook certain development challenges while selecting the framework.

So, what are the challenges faced while developing cross-platform mobile apps?

This blog post talks about various challenges faced in cross-platform mobile app development and solutions proposed to solve them. So, let’s deep dive and get started.

1. Challenge: Screen size and device compatibility

Today, users have a wide variety of devices with different screen sizes, software, and OS system. So, mobile app developers need to build apps that render perfectly on all screen sizes and devices. Furthermore, since each OS has its own set of UI patterns and objectives, developing a mobile app that runs flawlessly on multiple OS platforms has become quite a challenging task.

Solution

• Response design

Hire a cross-platform mobile app developer with experience designing responsive UI for different screen sizes and device compatibility. An app should be user-friendly to adjust in various screen sizes as per the device capabilities.

• Alternative layout

Even though the responsive design will work quite well with multiple screen sizes, it might not offer the user experience you’d have thought for. E.g., your phone UI isn’t blending well with the tablet. In such a case, you need to optimize your app for multiple screen sizes; it should provide alternative layout resources.

• Deploy your app in independent packages

To check the compatibility with OS and platforms, prepare a testing phase and ensure your app works seamlessly across platforms.

Additionally, consider releasing Beta versions of your app with regular updates.

2. Challenge: Development technology challenges

Currently, there’s no unified approach to app development. Though a majority of the people prefer to go with cross-platform app development, a significant number of people still prefer developing native apps. They feel developing platform-specific apps results in the best UI experience and seamless performance. At the same time, some choose hybrid app platforms, and some are swears by native app development. However, the lack of a unified approach to meet users’ needs creates a chaotic development environment prone to over expenditure and poor app performance.

Solution

• Identify your target audience in mind.

Identifying your target audience is the very first step to building an app. Android and iOS mobile apps are flooded in the market. So, your app must offer USP features to stand out in the market. If you’re looking to target platform specific audience, you can go with native app development. However, if your target audience is global, we suggest you go with cross-platform app development.

3. Challenge: Mobile app security

Nearly every developer is worried about security issues and loopholes in the industry. Malware issues are bound to happen, and the hardware fragmentation is like adding fuel to the fire.

The risk is always high- hackers can pick and manipulate the code anytime, creating a massive loophole during app deployment.

Insecure data storage, session management issues, and authentication challenges are cherry on the top. If these variables are left unchecked, these issues can lead to information manipulation, low app adoption, and poor user experience.

Solution

• Adhere to platform-specific guidelines

Make sure your app takes plenty of preventive measures and is adhered to strict platform rules and guidelines. In addition, your app should meet basic standards set by the App and Play store to control the distribution of your app securely.

• Utilize the Latest Cryptography Techniques

Developers must ensure good use of modern cryptography tools and techniques like AES 256 bit and SHA-256.

• Perform Thorough Security Check

Make sure your app undergoes a rigorous testing phase. If the issues arise, they should be resolved and re-tested again to fix any loopholes. An app should be consistent enough to derive organic traffic and results.

4. Limited updates

Sometimes, there might be a case where the OS system does not support all the features a framework might use. For instance, An iOS platform introduces a new element or component, so you need to update your iOS app accordingly. But the same feature hasn’t been rolled out by Google yet and so it cannot be done with the Android app.

Solution:

In such a case, you can build two instances of the same app where the code is re-used and update an instance according to the latest update release. This way, you can use the same app and target audience as per their platform preference.

5. Lower performance

App performance is one of the most essential key factors often overlooked. Though developers say that native and cross-platform apps function the same way, there is a slight difference. So although having the same functionalities, the native will be slightly better than cross-platform ones.

Solution:

The native app performs exceptionally compared to the cross-platform ones since the app is built in language-specific code and not the JavaScript ones. However, if you’re on a tight budget, go with cross-platform development. On the other hand, if you’re already an established company and looking to boost brand visibility, you can go with native app development.

PS: What were the toughest challenges faced while building cross-platform apps?

1. Unable to leverage the full functionality rendered by mobile devices, which results in poor user experience.
2. Delayed access to the latest features and updates
3. Poor customization and navigation integration.
4. Loss of code while switching to another platform.
5. Limited tool support in the framework
6. Handling big data
7. Platform capabilities

You Know What To Do Now!

Building cross-platform solutions for mobile app development is a hard nut to crack. But, as we see, the app industry is about to go near $200 billion. So it’s high time to check all the above issues and resolve them to launch your business app like a pro.

Want to build your cross-platform app?

Hire a cross-platform developer from us and get your app developed at the most competitive rates. Then, schedule a call with our experts and get an in-detailed quote about your project idea.