Chapter 1: The Battle Between Native, Cross-Platform, and Multiplatform
The proliferation of smartphones has led to the development of a large number of applications, making app development an important field. Because the same service in the form of an application needs to be developed on multiple platforms, various technologies, in addition to native solutions, have started to arise – first, cross-platform and now multiplatform. These technologies have been developed mainly to cut costs and make the application development process more efficient.
We'll start by learning about the issues with native development, why cross-platform can solve some of these issues with compromises, and how multiplatform can be a better solution. Also, if you're at the start of your career, we'll dive into why it may be better to focus on a multiplatform technology stack, rather than a cross-platform technology stack. I realize that this chapter is quite theoretical, but I encourage you to bear with me – it should help you build up that dopamine release, which is going to be paramount in the following chapters to maximize your learning.
In this chapter, we're going to cover the following topics:
- Understanding the compounding costs of native development
- Exploring the pitfalls of cross-platform solutions
- Adopting a multiplatform approach