Best Technologies for Mobile Application Development

Mobile applications remain a powerful tool for making profit in the modern digital market. Programs for smartphones allow users to reach a maximum of audience segments and achieve significantly greater results than using websites or software. While bringing business online expands interaction with a potential client, a mobile application pushes the user to commiting a few steps towards a deal or a purchase.

Studies show that adult users spend more than 80% of their time working on a mobile application, with the help of which they make purchases, study, receive medical services, etc. Thus, the field of mobile application development proves to be promising and profitable. In this article, we will tell you which mobile application development technologies are the most popular. 

Technologies for mobile application development

In the context of technologies for developing mobile applications, mobile platforms - software libraries are considered, with which programs are developed. In general, there are three groups of technologies for development:

1. Native frameworks are used to build applications for a specific operating system — iOS, Android, or Windows. For example, Java and Kotlin technologies are used to create an Android program, while Objective-C and Swift are indispensable in writing an application for iOS. A native approach to building mobile apps has its own benefits: improved on-device productivity and performance. 
2. Technologies for cross-platform development. Web languages are a tool for creating cross-platform applications. The key frameworks are React Native, Flutter, Ionic, and Xamarin. With their help, optimized web programs are written. 
3. Hybrid technologies combine the features of native and cross-platform. Plugins of such frameworks provide embedding of code created using standard web technologies (HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript). For example, with the help of such plugins, you can connect to native APIs - camera, notifications, etc.

What technologies are used to develop applications for Android?

Java is the key programming language for creating Android applications. The technology has proven to be robust, platform-independent, and object-oriented. It provides flexibility, scalability, and modularity of the application. The key advantage is the ability to reuse the code. 

Kotlin is another programming language applicable for Android application development. It is a reliable and efficient technology that surpasses Java in many ways. Knowing Kotlin, a developer will be able to write applications with a small amount of code, and learning the language takes a minimum of time. Other benefits include extensibility features, lazy loading that reduces load times, zero pointer safety, and library functionality.

What technologies are used to develop applications for iOS?

A widely used programming language for mobile app development on iOS is Swift. The language with an open, secure program code is easy to maintain, and the code itself allows to clearly and clearly implement ideas. Swift features are optimized performance, clean syntax, efficient memory usage, and compatibility with Objective-C files. 

Objective-C was developed from C in such a way as to avoid repetition while maintaining code speed and flexibility. Despite the complexity of Objective-C, compared to Swift, it is still often used in programming, especially where support for legacy code is required. Objective-C is built on an object-oriented approach, it is dynamic, and allows flexible memory management. 

Read also: Native Mobile App Development: What is it? Pros & Cons

Which technology matches cross-platform mobile development the best?

A single code base for the application to work on multiple platforms is created using modern cross-platform technologies — Flutter, React Native, and Xamarin. 

Flutter allows you to make changes to applications and track their work, it is ideal for creating beautiful and functional interfaces compatible with different IDEs. 

React Native — includes a huge number of components for creating mobile applications with an original interface. It is based on JavaScript. 

Xamarin is written in C language. Building Xamarin on the .NET platform provides compatibility with useful features such as asynchronous programming, Lambdas, and LINQ. 

It is obvious that the list of efficient and easy-to-use mobile application development technologies is not limited to those mentioned in the text. Specialists make the choice of one or another framework after analyzing the market and going through the preparatory stages of creating a product. 

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