Why Should Startups Invest In Cross-Platform App Development?

The development of cross-platform mobile apps is the most approached nowadays, particularly among businesses. It provides a uniform user experience across platforms, making maintenance and upgrades easier to handle. 

However, before investing in cross-platform app development, the following aspects must be considered.

Let us dive in to find out whether the startups should invest in it or not!

The Most Important Benefits of Cross-Platform App Development

The future of mobile app development is cross-platform. It’s the ideal alternative for startups because of its cost-effectiveness, larger reach, and speedier development. Cross-platform mobile development allows for quick updates and implementation by using a single code base and upgrading it across several platforms. It also provides a uniform user experience across platforms, making maintenance and upgrades easier to handle.

If your startup wants to benefit from cross-platform app development, this is the place to look.

Reduce time to market

According to the companies which provide the cross platform app development service, when creating an application using native technology (or hybrid), it takes longer than developing one from scratch due to various factors such as learning curves involved with each platform’s APIs (application programming interface) or user interfaces/UXs (user experience). 

Using cross-platform frameworks such as Ionic Framework or React Native, these difficulties become unimportant because both iOS and Android share common ideas such as navigation patterns, etc., considerably shortening the development period.

However, cross-platform development has its own set of risks:

• It may cost more money than developing just one platform at a time because each platform requires different talent sets and expertise across different companies in order for them all to work together effectively (this isn’t always true).
• If something goes wrong during testing or maintenance on one platform – especially when people are not paying attention – then everything could break down quickly due to entirely too much complexity involved (e.g.., if someone tries installing an app onto their phone while they’re home but instead puts it onto their tablet).

Improve your business flow

Creating a cross-platform app allows you to build an app for multiple platforms without worrying about coding. Every platform has its own API, which allows apps to have unique features and activities.

In other words, rather than spending hours developing each feature separately for numerous platforms, developers who provide the cross platform app development service may simply use a single set of source code.

Budget-friendly

Cross-platform software development or rather flutter application development is beneficial to startups but detrimental to major enterprises. Indeed, one of the key reasons why entrepreneurs should investigate mobile app development is the ability to save money while focusing on other aspects of their organization. It becomes a crucial consideration when developing a mobile app. 

Cross-platform developers can also give you high-quality work that will survive longer than if you did it yourself (especially if your firm lacks financial stability). This means that, whether your firm is little or large, it will have a better chance of success if it employs cross-platform software rather than having to manage everything from scratch.

Reach a bigger audience

By creating cross-platform apps, you may reach a larger audience. The more people you can reach, the more likely it is that you will make more money and grow your business. This is especially important if you wish to expand overseas or cross-pollinate with areas where you do not currently have a presence.

If you just want more people to view your product, cross-platform development can be beneficial in a number of ways:

• Reach new users in new places around the world; if they’re using an app on iPhone or Android, then perhaps they’ll see advertisements for another platform like Windows Phone 10 and download it themselves.
• Target users who might not normally check out what’s available elsewhere (e.g., people who only own Apple devices).

Key Drawbacks of Cross-platform App Development

There are benefits and drawbacks to cross-platform software development. The most significant disadvantage is that your project will be reliant on the framework provider, and you will lose access to specific modules and services.

The limited capabilities of a cross-platform app may be a concern if you demand something more substantial than what is offered with the bulk of these frameworks.

For example, if your business requires multiple users (e.g., partners), then building a single version for all platforms would not work well since each user will have different needs based on their platform type (iOS vs Android).

Furthermore, many libraries are only available in specific programming languages, and each language has its own standards that may or may not be compatible with other languages such as JavaScript or Swift. This means that developers must write distinct code for each target platform for which they desire to build their applications.

Limited Functionality

Flutter application development is a great way to reach a wide range of audiences, but it comes with some limitations.

The main limitation is cross-platform mobile app development, such apps are limited to the framework provider and its capabilities. The best example of this is that you can’t use all modules or features of a particular framework on your app unless you’re using the same platform as the one that provides it. 

This means for example that if you want to use React Native (an open-source JavaScript library), then your team will need iOS developers who know Objective-C or Swift programming languages respectively; and Android developers who know Java or Kotlin programming languages respectively.

This also means if one developer who provides cross platform app development service wants access only to certain parts of their codebase while another wants full access, they’ll have to write different versions of each part themselves so everyone gets what they need without having any knowledge about how other parts work together – which can be quite complicated when dealing with large amounts of code.

Dependent on the framework provider

If you are looking for a cross-platform framework, then the first thing to consider is whether or not the framework provider supports your desired technology. It’s important that they have an active community and support staff available to help out when needed. Which makes flutter the most suitable cross platform framework for app development.

They should also have an open bug tracker where users can report bugs and receive updates on upcoming features in their product lines. This helps ensure that customers are happy with what they buy from them, so it helps keep them coming back for more.

Additionally, if there are any gaps in functionality between platforms (such as iOS vs Android), then make sure these issues get addressed before releasing an app as otherwise users might be left waiting forever for fixes/additions which could cause serious damage during launch day itself.

Lose access to some modules and features

If you want to keep the same or similar functionality as your current app, then you will lose access to some modules and features. You can’t just pick up where you left off because the framework is different.

The only way around this is if your new app has a similar feature set as your old one; in that case, it wouldn’t make sense for them not also offer cross-platform development services since they would still be selling what they did before.

Conclusion

The main drawback of cross-platform app development is that you need to maintain multiple versions for each platform. The time required to build different versions can be significantly more than other platforms, resulting in delays in delivery time and cost. 

Once you’ve got an app live, you have to constantly update it because all platforms have their own specifications on how an app should work (and look).

Pinal Goda

Pinal is a React Native Developer working with Gtech Web Infotech Pvt. Ltd., a leading mobile app development company in India. Being capable of building cross-platform applications that are highly proficient and offer intuitive user experience is her forte.