Cross-platform Mobile Development

[Ho3n3r]

We have started to change the direction the development is moving in terms of our mobile apps. Currently, we use Cordova Ionic Framework and Visual Studio, as this is what we inherited from the previous devs, but we want to look at a fresh start and doing these things properly, especially short-term with new projects.

Is Xamarin a viable solution? Drawbacks? Anything better out there for cross-platform? Keep in mind that personally I am a n00b in this field(other dev has a lot more experience, but with Cordova Ionic Serve), but the current system is a nightmare in terms of maintainability, with regards to debugging and sorting out ****.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Kosmik]

We played with native a while ago and tried Xamarin. Didn't work so well for Xamarin but that was when it was first integrating with VS. We currently use Ionic as well, especially as most of our logic is already coded on a web services backend so it's really just frontend.

Sorry can't help too much on that front but I do see Ionic is releasing an entire new paltform? This is currently in Alpha - Capacitor Framework

 

[mercurial]

I've used Xamarin in the past and I would probably use it again.

 

[Kosmik]

I've used Xamarin in the past and I would probably use it again.

Didn't you find the engine a bit clunky on the phone? Last we tried it was like a 40+ Mb install for an app.

 

[mercurial]

Didn't you find the engine a bit clunky on the phone? Last we tried it was like a 40+ Mb install for an app.

It was years ago, but yes. I can only assume it has improved drastically since MS took control.

 

[Kosmik]

It was years ago, but yes. I can only assume it has improved drastically since MS took control.

Yah, we tried it about 2 years ago and was same but hopefully its changed.

 

[Knaidoo93]

Have a try at react native, it was quiet easy to pick up since I also used Cordova.

I feel with Xamarin, you need a decent machine to dev with.

 

[itareanlnotani]

Not a fan of Cordova.

Did some app dev work on Sencha+ Cordova, Sencha/Cordova both changed the API mid project, and it was a complete nightmare to rip out and upgrade.

I would have saved tons of time just doing the project in objective c from the start.
Sure, that was a few years ago, and things have probably gotten better.

For quick prototyping its ok, but for a longer term project, I'd go native where possible, unless you stick to basic html5 stuff.
Going Cross platform usually *isn't* unless you stick to basic's.

 

[[)roi(]]

Best UX is still native (C#, Swift, Java, ...), the contra for best DevX is debatably React Native with GraphQL.

However aside from Xamarin you can also consider Java & JavaFX and/or Scala with JavaFX and/or Kotlin with JavaFX.

 

[_kabal_]

If you already do react then react native, or if angular then nativescript is super easy to get going

 

[happyCoder]

Which version of Ionic is your project using.

Remember that Ionic is built on top of angular. So Ionic v1 is based on angularjs. Newer versions of Ionic or built on top of the new Angular which makes it much better to work with. (Think the newer versions of Ionic are not reliant on Cordova)

If your app is not trying to do anything fancy I would stick to a Javascript solution since you will basically be developing a web page in which you will have a lot of tutorials, documentation and skills in this area.

 

[[)roi(]]

If your app is not trying to do anything fancy I would stick to a Javascript solution since you will basically be developing a web page in which you will have a lot of tutorials, documentation and skills in this area.

PS. if you're planning to build an app that isn't "anything fancy" and essentially is just "a web page" in a wrapper
Don't.... just share a URL.

 

[krycor]

Yip.. if it's nothing ab/using the hardware, i'd go with a js solution which leverages the frameworks on either. e.g. https://www.nativescript.org/

And even when you expand to include some native functionality, only when it is a significant portion would u want to make a fully native application for each platform.

 

[zippy]

Ah, cross platform projects. Careful who you get to do this. So easy to screw up, and very hard to detect it’s a mess until a lot of money has been spent.

 

[Ho3n3r]

Ah, cross platform projects. Careful who you get to do this. So easy to screw up, and very hard to detect it’s a mess until a lot of money has been spent.

It will be me and the other dev. We have limited experience, and we have to start somewhere. This thread is to get us started on the correct path.

 

[C4Cat]

I'm quite interested in flutter but it's still early days (and I'm coming from an android dev background)