What is the best approach to develope a multi-platform mobile application?

Question

We need to make an application that runs on iPhone, Android and BB. What is the best approach to write the least ammount of code? I know about some frameworks but I am not sure the best approach.

Answer 1

I think the easiest way is to write a mobile web app. If all the phones will have data then let them hit a mobile based website, then you write it once and are down.

Answer 2

BB uses J2ME and iPhone uses Objective-C, so there is no chance of supporting them both. You could conceivably write a framework in C/C++ then use that for iPhone and Android (with the NDK), but the UI will always need to be written for the specific platform.

Answer 3

Web Service is the best approach to cover all these platforms.

Answer 4

Hi,

The best and most cost effective way of cross-platform development is by using a mobile development platform. There are several on the market, but there are several things you should look at when choosing one.

• Is the platform aimed at enterprise applications, social applications or games
• Does the platform enable you to build native applications for the underlying devices
• Is it secure (enterprise)
• How do you scale your solution
• How do you manage updates, changes, versions and new devices
• How do you integrate your mobile application to back-end systems.
• How big are the applications when developed on a platform, the bigger they are the fewer devices your app will run on

As mentioned your choice is dependant on the kind of application you want to write and the platforms you want to reach.

VMT, the company I work for, provides a platform called RAMP. RAMP enables you to reach both smart and feature phones, from low end Nokias, Sony Ericsson, Samsung (MIDP 1.0 onwards) etc all the way to Android, Blackberry etc.

Our platform is more focused on secure, native enterprise applications but you can build social apps (twitter, chat etc) on it as well. RAMP also allows you to build plug-ins so you can reach the phones features like camera, GPS and develop your own UI.

You can download RAMP at: http://ramp.virtualmobiletech.com/

Answer 5

Depending on your task at hand, you may use other, specialized solutions. For instance, if your code is heavily networked (e.g. you're building a social network or a music sharing app), requires WiFi, location, proximity, ad-hoc, connectivity to Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, or Symbian, app discovery, etc., then a solution like Mobile Community Framework (www.uvamobiltec.com) may work for you. You'd still need to write some code, but the most complex parts of the job would be done for you by the framework code, which is native to every platform.