INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Mobile Technology
Choosing the right tech stack
for mobile apps
/////////////////////////////
S
peed to market is the key ingredient to
sustaining a competitive advantage.
In the app development world,
choosing the right mobile technology stack
could mean the difference between success
and failure. Bluegrass Digital CEO Nick Durrant says
until recently, developers could only employ
native platform skills to develop apps.
If someone wants to create a highly
functional mobile app – quicker and cheaper
– they need to choose the right mobile
app technology. It is crucial to consider a
language or framework with a selection
of ready-made components for common
development tasks. “As a software development company that
designs and develops a number of B2C and
B2B mobile applications for customers, we
have to consider a range of tech stacks that
are best suited for each project.”
The technology stack is critical to the long-
term success and viability of any mobile app
development project. This not only includes
the functional requirements but more
importantly, the business requirements from
ongoing maintainability, scalability and cost
of ownership.
“However, today there are other options to
consider,” he said.
Mobile app development will continue to
grow as more businesses adopt mobile
technologies and you need to consider
the pros and cons of the most popular
mobile app development approaches and
the advanced tech stacks you can use to
implement them.
“Native app development means using
specific programming language for the
platform,” said Durrant.
“This means you need specific skills for
each platform. For iOS you can select
Objective C or Swift, although we tend
to use Swift as the preferred language
because it is more functional and generally
provides better performance.
“For Android native development, we tend
to use Java which is a well-established
programming language with access to a
large open-source community and libraries.
Bluegrass Digital CEO Nick Durrant
62
INTELLIGENTCIO
“Hybrid app development use standard
web technologies that many developers
are familiar with such as HTML5, CSS and
JavaScript frameworks. Essentially you are
building a web application that is wrapped
in a container and then packaged as a
mobile app. This does mean there is a
lower barrier to entry for developers and we
tend to see badly develop apps shipped via
this method.
“Over the years, we have refined
our approach to deliver native-like
performance in a hybrid-built app. We
tend to use a specific stack of JavaScript
frameworks like Ionic along with Cordova
to deliver the app.
“The cross-platform app development
approach means that you are delivering a
native-built app for multiple platforms on
IOS, Android and Windows. There are two
popular technology stacks to consider,
React Native and Xamarin. We have
used both for different reasons and each
has its advantages.
“Xamarin is well established and uses C#
as its main language. It is well supported
by the Microsoft community and if built
correctly, is a solid option for cross-platform
development. We tend to use React Native
as our chosen cross-platform tech stack. This
is a JavaScript framework and appeals to a
wider development community with strong
JavaScript skills and compiles as a full native
mobile app.
“It was created by Facebook and has
received much attention and adoption over
the last few years. This is gaining popularity
and we have invested a lot of time in
developing our skills over the last four years
having delivered a number of enterprise
mobile apps for clients.
“In summary, each approach comes with
their own pros and cons, however like any
type of development project it comes down
to planning and execution. Choosing the best
technology stack can boost one’s business,
it is therefore one of the most important
decisions before starting any project.” n
www.intelligentcio.com