Cross-Platform App Development: The Final Solution to iOS vs Android Debate

There are a few statistics that are often quoted to show the deep divide between Android and iOS platform. The two most intriguing ones include- 9 out of every 10 smartphones sold today run on the Android platform while the majority of profits are still reaped by iPhones. Second, despite having such large differences in user base, both the platforms feature almost the same number of applications and iOS apps on average makes more money than their Android counterparts.

Now because building an app for each of these platforms is very time and resource consuming, the general wisdom goes something like this:

1. If you are looking to initially attract a large number of users and then later move to profitability, Android app development should be your first preference.

2. If ROI is the first thing on your mind and you intend to invest those returns to later expand to other platforms, iOS development should be your ideal choice.

And to be fair, that’s quite a reasonable stand unless you take into account a third option- cross-platform applications. The reason most businesses don’t even consider this option is because cross-platform apps have a bad reputation of being clunky, poor user experience, inferior performance, and such. And while that used to be the case a few years ago, the landscape today has completely changed. So much so that they have emerged as a truly viable option for businesses struggling to choose between Android and iOS app development.

It is worth pointing here that not all cross-platform applications are the same. Basically, they are of two kinds:

Built on web views

These applications are basically a more refined version of mobile websites with the interface similar to that of mobile apps. Though they look the same, they don’t deliver app-like performance or user experience.

Built through native components

These cross-platform apps are built using the native components of respective platforms- Android or iOS. Not just aesthetically, they also match Android and iOS apps in terms of performance and user experience. These are the kinds of cross-platform applications that bridge the gap between Android and iOS debate. This is the reason new frameworks like React Native, that build this kind of cross-platform applications are gaining momentum these days.

The debate between Android and iOS hinges on three key issues:

Cost

Building both Android and iOS apps at once remains quite expensive and thus businesses have to make trade offs.

Because cross-platform app development is cheaper, no such trade off is needed and businesses can target both.

Development timeline and maintenance

Even for businesses with deep pockets, cross-platform remains quite alluring due to its short development cycle and ease of maintenance. In the fast-paced app development space, native applications with development cycle stretching to months doesn’t really offer any competitive advantage. With cross-platform apps, they can move fast and capture markets even before others build their apps.

For example, UberEats- Uber’s food delivery arm, is a cross-platform app built on React Native. It’s not that Uber didn’t have the money to build two separate native apps but they choose to go hybrid as it has shorter development cycle- critical for quick expansion, and is much easier to maintain over time.

Overall, cross-platform applications now deliver everything that Android and iOS can without any of their shortfalls. And as these tools become more powerful and gain wider traction, we might finally see an end to the decade-long debate of Android vs. iOS.