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In our contemporary world, almost everyone has a mobile device, except Bob, but don’t be like Bob. Besides, with the current technologies, you can easily access mobile app development tools. Nevertheless, there are so many mobile app development tools today that it’s like an embarrassment of riches. The main questions are: Which single application should you use? How to avoid forking over too much dinero?
Do you need developer skills to use these applications? If you’ve ever asked yourself these questions, you’ve come to the right place. Here, we’ll look at the best mobile app dev tools and which ones are the most appropriate for your application and piggy bank.
The review of mobile app development tools
Xamarin
This is the best choice for native applications among mobile app development tools. The software was developed by evil overlords at Microsoft. Due to the C# codebase, you can create Windows, Android, and iOS applications. Generally speaking, in C#, you may do everything you can in Objective-C, Java, or Swift. Another feature is that by using this tool, you can use the same IDE, language, and API.
What’s superduper cool is that into the Xamarin Studio is built a Git integration. The other advantages of Xamarin are the following: Using Xamari, you can share about 75% of developed code across major mobile platforms. As a result, it’ll highly decrease time-to-market and costs. Many devices are provided with functionality testing and quality assurance to ensure seamless integration.
PhoneGap
Among mobile app development tools, this one falls into the category of cross-platform app development. One of the significant advantages of this baby is that it allows you to create an application capable of working on all mobile devices. Also, it works on HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript.
The framework is integrated with several libraries to save time and improve functionality. If you’re unsatisfied with the PhoneGap architecture, you can always extend it with the help of plug-in architecture.
Due to the powerful backend system, it increases the speed of application development. This tool has an Open Source License, which means it’s a free framework for mobile app development for you folks who can’t Google. Around PhoneGap, there’s a large amount of developers who are constantly developing the quality of the app.
Convertigo is an open-source software vendor. This tool provides a mobile enterprise application platform. Convertigo has many slick features. First, it’s a cross-platform that allows you to run your applications on multiple devices (Android, iOS, and Windows phones).
Thanks to Convertigo FullSync data replication technology, you can make your data available without any complex coding, even if the network is out of reach after they’ve cut the internet off at your mom’s house for your torrenting. Besides, this tool leverages any Cordova plugins and hardware device features. It can be a camera, GPS, or sensors.
Sencha Ext JS is everything a hungry developer needs to build data-intensive, cross-platform applications. One of the enormous advantages of this tool is that it has more than one hundred high-quality, pre-tested, and integrated UI components, such as charts, grids, calendars, and so on. Its framework includes a robust data package that consumes data from any backend source. This tool will also allow you to prototype, develop, code, debug, and test your web application on any browser and device.
Appcelerator is the most appropriate name for this application, as it accelerates the app development process. Due to fewer lines of code, developers can create applications in shorter periods. Appcelerator can support Android, iOS, Windows, and other browser-based HTML5 applications. It doesn’t matter whether you decide to develop a native or a cross-platform application; this tool will contribute to developing your applications.
Many developers choose Appcelerator, which has various platform-specific APIs, features, and user interfaces. To build native and hybrid mobile applications, Appcelerator Titanium uses JavaScript and XML. It also may be very, very(very) useful for you in case you decide to build a web application. Besides, there’s a massive community of developers, and they gather at the Appcelerator Open Mobile Marketplace. That’s where you can sell, buy, and share modules, templates, and extensions.
Monocross
This tool is an open-source, cross-platform mobile framework. With its assistance, you’ll be able to create various beautiful iOS (iPads, iPhones) and Android applications, as well as Windows Phone and Webkit-enabled devices. Monocross uses C# .NET and the Mono framework to develop apps supporting different platforms.
There are other advantages of this tool. It allows users to create a custom user interface for each targeted platform but write logic and code simultaneously. Monocross flexibly uses the same code, whether natively complicated to the device or executing on the server.
Kony Mobility Platform is an integrated, cross-platform mobile app development platform. It can be used for building universal mobile applications. Its visual design canvas and tools provide faster cross-platform design and development. The other nice feature is that developers and designers can integrate 100% of the native OS or any other open-source and third-party framework (or select a pre-built template) for a great user experience without losing speed.
Nativescript
This tool is another open-source platform allowing you to develop native cross-platform mobile applications. What’s brilliant here is that this tool gives you every native API in JavaScript for most mobile platforms. This tool has the following features. Nativescript is extensible as it allows you to reuse existing plugins from npm, CocoaPods (iOS), and Grade (Android) directly in NativeScript projects and hundreds of NativeScript-specific plugins.
Nativescript has a beautiful, platform-native, and accessible UI (that can’t be compared with webviews). Define once and let NativeScript adapt to run everywhere or tailor the UI to specific devices and screens.
RhoMobile
RhoMobile is based on the Rhodes framework. This set of tools will be highly helpful for you in developing multi-platform, data-centered, native mobile consumer and enterprise applications. With the help of RhoStudio, a free Eclipse plugin, developers can develop, generate, debug, and test applications. And you won’t even need any other hardware or emulator requirements.
Codename One
This is another cross-device platform that can be used in developing industry-based applications. One of the most outstanding features is that this platform supports a rapid application environment. That means you may write your code in Java, and your application will be tested and verified with Codename One’s simulator devices and various automation tools.
This framework supports popular IDEs like Eclipse, NetBeans, and IntelliJ IDEA. Hold on… This is not the most exciting feature. That would be that you can build native iOS and native Windows apps. And you don’t even need to have a MAC or Windows. Besides, this platform is recommended for developing iOS applications.
BuildFire
This is a high-performance, do-it-yourself mobile app builder that’s capable of supporting iOS and Android phones as well as tablets. This tool may shorten the time to launch by months or even years with the help of pre-built functionality. This includes over 40 plugins directly integrating Smooth, Segment, and others. Finally, various pre-existing templates to build from.
You may think of it like a Wix or Weebly, though, for mobile applications with the actual capability to build an app that’s launch-ready in 20–30 minutes.
React Native
With the help of React Native, you’ll be able to develop mobile applications using only JavaScript. With the same design as React, you can compose a rich mobile User Interface from declarative components.
React Native allows you to build your app much faster without having to recompile it. You can reload your app instantly. Using Hot Reloading, you also can run new code while retaining your application state.
Another feature of React Native is that it’s capable of combining smoothly with components written in Objective-C, Swift, or Java. In case you need to optimize a few aspects of your application, all you need to do is drop down to native code.
The Bottom Line
Nowadays, we’ve got oodles of mobile app development tools. All these applications vary in complexity, price, usability, and many other ways. However, the primary purpose of this article was to motivate you to start using one of these apps and simplify the process of mobile application development. I hope we achieved our goal and you found something useful. Tell us about your favorite app development tool. We’re just waiting to hear from you!
