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The big question is: Which one should one choose if the main goal is to have a single code base to work across as many platforms as possible? As an example, I'
by otto_ortega 10y ago
The big question is: Which one should one choose if the main goal is to have a single code base to work across as many platforms as possible?
As an example, I'm on the verge of starting the development of a SASS application that I would like to make available on the browser but also as a "native" app on Android and iOS.
- ergo14 10y agoI have serious doubts if the "one codebase" is really the best way to go - especially with javascript.
- mercer 10y agoAssuming the browser version is a must-have, you could give Cordova a shot (and Ionic on top of that if you're okay with Angular 2 and TypeScript. I'm not, so for me it's Cordova + React). If 'looking native' is important, you might have to add platform-specific styling, as well as a few misc. little things here and there (momentum scrolling, disallowing text selection where it doesn't make sense, etc.). My experience has been that with relatively little work you can have an app that runs on web, iOS, Android and possibly other mobile devices. In my case these were relatively simple apps UI-wise though, so not a lot of animation and relatively basic interactions (tap, swipe). The downsides are that making it appear fully native is probably a bunch of work (and perhaps not 100% possible), as well as the fact that you have all the drawbacks of running a mobile-browser-in-a-wrapper (battery duration? limited usage of native stuff? anyone else got some downsides to mention?). But once you have time or money, you could then move to React-native and still reuse some of your browser-app code, API, etc., or of course you could then go the full mile and build separate native apps one at a time.