Cross-platform Solution for Development of Mobile Applications

Gatis Vitols

, Ingus Smits

and Oleg Bogdanov

SIA "IT kompetences centrs", Lacplesa 41, Riga, Latvia

Faculty of Information Technologies, Latvia University of Agriculture, Liela 2, Jelgava, Latvia

Ecommerce Accelerator, Skanstes 54, Riga, Latvia

Keywords: Mobile Applications, Development Frameworks, Styling Tools.

Abstract: Mobile devices are one of the most popular devices for access to web applications. Problems that arise in

development process of mobile web applications are the same as with desktop applications. One of the

fundamental problems in both cases is cross platform development. At the moment three mobile application

development methods can be identified: web-based, native and hybrid. When developing business

applications, hybrid application development framework can be most appropriate. From evaluated hybrid

application development frameworks and styling tools Adobe PhoneGap with JQuery Mobile have the

highest compliance to the criteria researched in this study.

1 INTRODUCTION

Smart phone market is growing rapidly and so does

the count of different applications that can be

executed on them. Companies targeting those

markets must overcome different challenges such as

integration into central application distribution

models and ensurance of product correspondence to

quality and content requirements.

Problems that arise in development process of

such applications are the same as with desktop

applications. One of the fundamental problems in

both cases is cross platform development.

Typical solution for this matter is single

codebases applications developed with web and

mobile web technologies. Various application

development researchers bring forward advantages

and disadvantages of mobile web technologies. For

example there is a statement (Na, 2011) that

developing cross-platform mobile web applications

with a single codebase is one strategy that allows

organizations to stay ahead of the mobile curve.

When taking into consideration rapid mobile

operation system development and principles of the

mobile market that allow platform developers to

change the rules of distribution of mobile

applications, single codebase solutions that allow

deploying applications on multiple platforms

becomes an important matter. Use of mobile web

technologies not always satisfies functionality

demands of developed application. For example

developed applications cannot access all supported

platform services and devices, such as contacts,

messaging, compass and others. It is concluded that

current versions of mobile browsers have some

functional limitations, but rapid development of

mobile technologies allow to overcome many of

these limitations (Na, 2011).

It is already seen that advances in web

technologies and device capabilities have created

alternative application development technologies

that are web-based, use proprietary middleware and

clients, or are a hybrid of webkit and native

applications. At the moment the hybrid approach

provides the best trade-off (Myer, 2012).

At the moment three mobile application

development methods can be identified: web-based

native and hybrid (Fig. 1). As it can be seen from

Figure 1, web-based applications are most restricted.

Hybrid and native ones can provide access to almost

all functionality of mobile operation system

(Beckman, 2012). In practice, hybrid applications

has still more restrictions compared to native ones.

However, these restrictions can only be identified

when developing certain type and requirement

applications, such as gaming applications.

For example native applications still can have

several features that are difficult to "imitate" by web

applications and some hybrid applications, such as

complex 3D graphics or the management of device

273

Vitols G., Smits I. and Bogdanov O..

Cross-platform Solution for Development of Mobile Applications.

DOI: 10.5220/0004448302730277

In Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS-2013), pages 273-277

ISBN: 978-989-8565-60-0

 2013 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

Figure 1: Mobile device functionality access possibilities

with different application development methods.

hardware components such as sensors (Gossweiler et

al., 2011).

While developing application developers must

take in mind mobile device’s limitations (resources,

input possibilities, screen features, etc.), must realize

marketing requirements for application deployment

and modelling, as well as distributors, providers,

technologies providers and end user relations

(Corral, Janes, et al. 2012).

2 MATERIALS AND METHODS

To identify cross-platform mobile applications

development solution it is important to determine

target platform preference. Depending on the target

devices, the application can be either cross-platform

or developed for dedicated or native platform

(Christ, 2011).

Basically most of existing platforms use different

programming languages. For example, Apple iOS

use Objective-C, Android and RIM use variations of

JAVA, Windows Phone 7 use C# and so on. To

develop cross-platform applications there should be

either professional developer available who can

work with these languages and have environment or

solution for creation of mobile cross-platform

applications.

Another important point is to develop use cases,

which basically requires determination of potential

users and functionality of application. Applications

that are running on mobile devices involve vast

range of types: communication, entertainment,

business, media and others (Corral, Janes, et al.

2012). For example gaming application will have

different functionality requirements than business

application.

In practical development for creation of hybrid

or mobile web applications basic web systems can

be translated into mobile applications using:

 Framework, such as Appcelerator, MoSync,

KonyOne, PhoneGap, RhoMobile, Corona and

others.

 Styling tools, such as JQTouch, DojoMobile,

JQuery Mobile, DHTMLX Touch,

SenchaTouch, and others.

Multiple criteria can be brought forward for

selection of frameworks and tools that would allow

creating such cross-platform solution. We propose

that one of the basic criteria should be extensibility

of developed solution. Therefore tools that are

chosen should satisfy basic extensibility matters and

follow such criteria:

 Multiple platforms.

 Single codebase.

 Tools (plug-in) repositories.

 Main stream tool.

 Open source.

 Functionality.

Solutions should support multiple platforms. As

minimum support for largest shareholders in the

market (Christ, 2011):

Android, Apple iOS, RIM

(BlackBerry), Windows Phone 7 and Symbian.

However Symbian will loose it's share, because

producer of this platform Nokia announced that they

discontinue the mobile operation system (Islam

2013).

Solutions should be single codebase. It is

considered that managing several code sets creates

considerably extra work, which translates to

increased development time and a greater

probability of code errors (Myer, 2012).

Size and existence of tools (plug-in) repositories.

This criteria also directly relates to extensibility of

solutions as if there is no or low activity in

production of tools (plug-ins) by owners or third

party producers, it can be a sign of low extensibility.

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Main stream tool. For example it can be

evaluated with measuring size of community, count

of bug fixes, count of updates, and count of

responses to submitted problems.

Open Source is another criterion that may not be

obligatory, but could be beneficial if the developed

solution is based on open source tools and

technologies. Open source solution also partly relate

to satisfying demand for extensibility. A widely used

and supported licence type is also beneficial, such as

GNU General Public License (GPL) or MIT license

(MIT).

Functionality relates to which mobile device

features are supported by selected tools. Typical

mobile device features include contacts,

accelerometer, camera, compass, files, geolocation,

media, network, storage, barcode scanner, alert

notifications, sound notifications, etc (Corral, Sillitti,

et al. 2012).

3 SOLUTION IDENTIFICATION

FOR BUSINESS APPLICATION

As for typical application profile we chose simple

business applications that include catalogue of

services, graphical details and functionality to

perform simple monetary deals.

Criteria for framework:

1. Supported platforms: Android, Apple iOS, RIM

(BlackBerry), Windows Phone 7.

2. Single code base solution.

3. Size of tools (plug-ins) repository. As count of

published tools (up to February 1, 2013).

4. Count of updates (up to February 1, 2013).

5. Count of registered members in the community

(up to February 1, 2013).

6. Open source solution.

7. Supported mobile device functions:

accelerometer, contacts, camera, files,

geolocation, media, network, storage, barcode

scanner, alert notifications and sound

notifications.

Leading and often mentioned (Christ, 2011;

Corral, Janes, et al., 2012; Espada et al., 2012;

Corral, Sillitti, et al. 2012; Newman, 2011) hybrid

application development frameworks are

RhoMobile, Corona, Appcelerator and PhoneGap.

We performed evaluation of those frameworks

compliance to criteria.

Based on performed analysis (see Table 1) it can

be seen, that highest compliance to criteria reach

Adobe PhoneGap.

Adobe PhoneGap other advantage are that

applications are built using common web

technologies such as HTML and CSS (Myer, 2012).

For example, RhoMobile requires knowledge of

Ruby language. However, Adobe PhoneGap main

disadvantages include, application is rendered using

platform’s web browser engine, not individual native

user interface objects and each mobile platform

requires installing appropriate SDK.

Another part of typical development process is

application styling. In a lot of cases it has same

importance as functionality of developed

application. There are several possible solutions

available that contribute application development

with hybrid development method. Popular and often

mentioned ones are JQTouch, JQuery Mobile,

SenchaTouch, DojoMobile (Corral, Sillitti, et al.

2012; Firtman, 2012).

In most cases these solutions physically are

JavaScript libraries that have to be added to the

developed application.

Table 1: Identification of hybrid framework for

development of business applications.

Criterion

No.

RhoMobile

Corona

Appcelerator

PhoneGap

1. + - - +

2. + + + +

3. N/A 22 N/A 77

4. 6 N/A 10 16

5. 2716 N/A N/A 15095

6. - - - +

7. + + + +

Criteria for styling solutions:

1. Size of tools (plug-ins) repository. As count of

published tools (up to February 1, 2013).

2. Count of updates (up to February 1, 2013).

3. Count of registered member topics in the

community (up to February 1, 2013).

4. Open source solution.

5. Footprint, which is the size in KB of script

code. This criterion has importance on

execution speed of particular solution as script

is loaded into memory before starting to

execute functions of the script.

Table 2 shows comparison of identified solutions.

Based on performed analysis of styling solutions

(see Table 2) it can be seen, that highest compliance

to criteria reach JQuery Mobile. Main benefits of

this framework are the plug-in repository, longer

Cross-platformSolutionforDevelopmentofMobileApplications

275

Table 2: Identification of styling solution for business

application.

Criterion No.

JQTouch 1.0

JQuery Mobile

1.2.0

SenchaTouch

2.1.1

DojoMobile

1.8

1. N/A 16 N/A N/A

2. N/A 33 11 8

3. N/A 9648 62624 21532

4. + + - +

5. 10.9KB 110KB 94KB 152KB

update history and it's an open source solution.

However it has larger footprint compared to

SenchaTouch and JQTouch.

MOBILE DEVICE

DATA STORAGE SOLUTIONS

SYSTEM DEVICES

ACCELEROMETER CAMERA COMPASS

GPS

FILE

SYSTEM

NATIVE

DATABASE

OTHER DATA

STORAGE

SOLUTIONS

OTHER

SYSTEM SERVICES

NOTIFICATIONS

& MESSAGING

CONTACTS

CALL

SERVICES

OTHER

DATA

SERVICES

HYBRID APPLICATION

Figure 2: Proposed cross-platform solution for

development of mobile applications.

SenchaTouch have also high compliance to the

criteria, but one of the main drawbacks is unclear

existence of plug-in repository and that it is mainly

commercial solution.

From the analysis of solutions presented in Table

1 and Table 2 it is possible to propose cross-platform

solution for development of mobile applications (see

Fig. 2).

It is also mentioned that Adobe PhoneGap and

very well can be integrated with jQuery Mobile

(Firtman, 2012).

4 CONCLUSIONS

Hybrid and native applications can provide access to

almost all functionality of mobile operation system.

When developing business application, hybrid

framework is most appropriate.

From compared hybrid application development

frameworks, Adobe PhoneGap has highest

compliance to criteria that is brought forward in this

research.

Main benefits of PhoneGap include open source

licence, wide mobile platform support and large

repository of tools (plug-ins). However, as

PhoneGap has been acquired by Adobe, there is a

concern about possible licensing change from open

source to commercial for this framework.

From compared hybrid application development

styling tools, JQuery Mobile is most appropriate.

Main benefits of this styling framework include

existence of plug-in repository, longer update history

and it's an open source solution.

For future research it is still an open discussion

about hybrid solutions ability to produce cross-

platform applications that feel and looks like native

ones.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Research is part of project „Competence centre of

information and communication Technologies” run

by IT competence centre, contract No. L-KC-11-

003, co financed by European Regional

Development Fund.

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