Development Solutions2022.02.22By: Miichisoft

What Is Mobile App Development? A Beginner's Overview

According to statistics, annual mobile app downloads worldwide grew from 14.68 billion in 2016 to 21.8 billion in 2020. Given today's trends, the mobile app business will keep growing and become a core business area going forward.

This article gives an overview of mobile app development. Use it as a reference for understanding trends in the mobile market.

1. What is mobile app development?

Mobile app development means creating software for smartphones and digital assistants (AI), most commonly for Android or iOS. This software can come pre-installed on a device, be downloaded from a mobile app store, or be accessed through a web browser.

Read more: [2023] The best programming languages for mobile app development and how to choose one

2. Best frameworks for cross-platform mobile app development

Mobile development frameworks are applications built to help developers build mobile apps. Above all, they form the foundational structure that supports mobile app development, improves the process, and reduces cost.

Here are the top 3 frameworks of 2022

2.1. Flutter

Flutter is Google's mobile UI framework for building high-quality interfaces on both iOS and Android in a short amount of time. Flutter works with the existing code that developers and organizations already use.

According to Google, "In the two years since its release, more than 2 million developers have used the Flutter framework, and that number keeps growing."

Why Flutter is well suited for mobile app development

Open-source Project: Flutter was created by Google and released as an open-source SDK for building mobile-based applications. This software is free and can be used for any mobile app development purpose. On top of that, there are many free options available for mobile development.
Shorter development time: Flutter is built on a single codebase for developing apps that support both Android and iOS. This means you only need to write the code once to build for both platforms. Beyond those two platforms, Flutter also supports building desktop apps and web apps using the same Android/iOS codebase.
Native performance: Flutter's widgets combine platform-specific differences in scrolling, navigation, icons, and fonts to deliver the best possible performance on both iOS and Android.
Boosting productivity with hot reload: Flutter supports hot reload, meaning when you make a code change, you can see it immediately without waiting for the app to reload or restart. Checking a change usually takes just a few seconds. This lets designers add new features, fix bugs, and test apps far more efficiently.
Interfaces that adapt flexibly to users: With Material Design for Android and the Cupertino style for iOS, Flutter offers many components for building beautiful interfaces, supporting a wide range of motion APIs and smooth scrolling.
Support for a wide range of IDEs: Flutter supports many IDEs, giving developers a comfortable development environment. In general, most developers, once they start with an IDE, don't try switching to another. Flutter has the edge here, offering access to numerous IDEs such as Android Studio, IntelliJ, and VS Code.
Official support: Since Flutter is released by Google, there's little to worry about when it comes to community support. Flutter has a dedicated, highly skilled support team plus a community of over 1,000 developers helping to improve and enhance it.

Popular applications built with Flutter include:

Alibaba
Google Ads app
Reflectly
Cryptograph
Birch Finance

2.2. React Native

React Native is a framework created by Facebook that lets developers use JavaScript to build mobile apps with native-level experience and performance on both Android and iOS. React Native stands out because you can build for both iOS and Android from a single codebase.

This saves time, effort, and cost, and helps speed up product releases and app updates. React Native can be described as a cross-platform way to build effective mobile applications.

Benefits of using React Native

Code reusability: With React Native, developers can reuse code while building cross-platform apps. In particular, instead of writing a separate app for each platform, developers can reuse nearly 80–90% of the code. Benefits of this include:

Saves time and lowers application development cost.
Makes better use of human resources.
Less code to maintain and fewer bugs.
Similar functionality across platforms.
Large user community: with a worldwide community, it's relatively easy to find support when bugs occur.

Stability and optimization: Because it's developed by Facebook, React Native delivers high-quality, stable performance.

React Native's code simplifies data handling.
Application development teams don't need to be very large.
Builds apps for multiple operating systems with minimal native code.
Superior user experience compared to hybrid apps.

Popular applications built with React Native include:

Facebook
Airbnb
Walmart
Bloomberg
Instagram
Soundcloud
UberEats

2.3. Xamarin

Xamarin was created in May 2011 by the same engineers who created Mono (Mono for Android and MonoTouch). Xamarin technology is actually developed by Microsoft, whose core platform is cross-platform.

This technology lets coders write code once and run it on various mobile platforms (iOS, Android, UWP).

Benefits of Xamarin

Cross-platform:

Cross-platform: Xamarin can develop applications for a variety of platforms. This is achieved through a combination of the C# programming language and a cross-platform framework. Xamarin technology in particular is very well suited to operating systems.

It can run on both Mac and Windows, the two most popular operating systems in the world. What's more special is that programmers can reuse 90% of the code, allowing it to be reused to speed up engineering cycles for the next platform.

Near-native performance figures:

When the programming standard is native code with excellent metrics, Xamarin technology can achieve it too. As proof, its performance metrics are comparable to apps built with React Native. Along with that, Xamarin's performance is also continuously updated.

Code sharing across many places:

It uses the same programming language, C#, along with the same APIs and data structures. That means every application designed with Xamarin technology can be shared across any platform. The amazing figure is that 75% of the code is shareable. This is also why it can significantly save time and cost when designing an app. Xamarin can be used to design both iOS and Android apps.

Delivers the perfect coder experience:

As mentioned above, Xamarin was created by one of the largest technology companies in the world. When it comes to Microsoft, few would argue the quality of this technology isn't top-tier. It's also one of the best-known mobile app design technologies. Programmers can fully design their own user experience for each platform, giving app users the best possible experience.

Applications built with Xamarin include:

The World Bank
BBC Good Food
HCL
Alaska Airlines

3. Summary - Mobile app development

When it comes to mobile app development trends, Flutter, React Native, and Xamarin are three popular frameworks that continue gaining momentum. These frameworks offer the benefit of simplifying smartphone app development and cutting development time and cost, so you should choose a mobile app development framework based on your development goals and the type of application.

Miichisoft specializes in mobile app development consulting for Japanese clients. With professional expertise and a strong service mindset, we don't just meet your requests — we confidently deliver the following 4 benefits: