Our current day-to-day lives are built with technology in mind. Right from waking up from an alarm to doom scrolling on Instagram before going to sleep, we seamlessly switch between devices having flawless experience on each one.

But building such cross-platform applications that function efficiently across different OS and devices is no easy feat.

For dedicated developers, mastering these nuances of cross-platform application development is necessary. Let us read about the common challenges faced while developing cross-platform, along with some solutions to counter them!

One major bottleneck in cross-platform development is developing ideal performance across different devices. It becomes tricky to have all platforms under consideration and affects the tech stack choices too.

Here’s how dedicated developers can navigate this:

Fine-tuning the developing app according to each platform’s demands, strengths and weaknesses guarantees a smoother experience. This may involve developers using native code for certain functionalities on some platforms.

Monitoring the performance using specialized tools allows identifying performance hurdles in the developed code, leading to targeted efforts.

Developers can consider breaking down the app into different modules. This makes the development easier to optimize the application for different platforms, while allowing for scalability.

Cross-platform application development involves collaborating with multiple teams working together. But these teams often work in silos due to different workflows or tools. Here are some ways to ensure maximum collaboration whilst developing:

Having CI/CD pipelines implemented allows for support across various technology stacks required in cross-platform development. This also caters to specific platforms that allow teams to work in a unified environment.

Using a DevOps platform, thus, facilitates better communication and streamlined project management.

To have better collaborative workflows, it requires clear communication and understanding of intent. A digital platform allowing for task delegation and progress tracking will help immensely.

Some examples are Jira, Asana, amongst many.

Any collaborative platform, or tool that offers automation for easy end-to-end testing gives a consistent user experience across devices and operating systems.

In cross-platform development, a seamless UX goes hand-in-hand with strong security. Having such strong protocols is incredibly important to facilitate easy development, wider target audience, and to achieve business goals.

Here’s how developers can protect sensitive user information-

Here, using techniques like encryption strengthen security and data integrity across all platforms.

Allowing for high-priority encryption & user authentication protocols immensely safeguards sensitive information & builds user’s trust.

Security measures must be designed effectively regardless of any platform. This ensures a consistent UX and level of protection for users across devices.

Wrappers and bridges bridge the gap between different codes concerning cross-platform and native development. However, these can bring forth performance hurdles for users.

Here’s how developers can overcome this:

Optimizing the interaction between platform layers is key to this. This can include minimizing data exchange to ensure a smooth flow of communication.

When the app performance is tricky to figure, identifying the critical functionalities & implementing them in native code may work.

This leverages the strength of each platform’s hardware & software by focusing on certain functionalities specific to the platform.

Here, choosing serializers & reserializes for data exchange between layers minimizes extra bottlenecks. Through clean data payloads, developers can ensure a smooth performance across devices.

For developers who excel at native app development, the familiar approach may tempt- using the same architecture for cross-platform applications.

But this unfinished thought leads to issues down the road.

Cross platform development frameworks provide an abstract approach. They focus on building the core functionalities without platform consideration.

These development efforts are then translated to being platform specific.

Choosing the correct architecture from the start can help the long-term maintainability of the cross-platform application. Having an abstract architecture gives developers chances of easier updates & bug fixes across platforms, saving resources.

A seamless UX across platforms is a core feature while developing cross-platform applications. The line ends here- a consistent design is a must.

However, this consistency is challenged by varied design guidelines for different operating systems.

How do developers work around this? Read below!

Frameworks like Flutter & React Native offer an ideal blend of native-like performance & UI decoupling. This lets developers create a core UI that is native-like on each platform, while customizing it for platform-specific design elements.

A properly planned design system allows for a unified look and feel on varied platforms. This should contain the core UI components & guidelines related to design & text.

Developers must embrace each platform’s strengths. These minor UI changes help align with the native designs that create a cohesive UX across devices, OS, and platforms.

Through these methods, developers can create a UX that resonates and is familiar to users, regardless of their device of choice.

The beauty of cross-platform applications lies in their extended usability. But what happens when features differ across devices? A phone’s camera would work differently than an iPad’s!

Here’s how developers can ensure a consistent set of features across devices:

The app can incorporate a code to identify the specific device & its feature its being used on. This lets the app to have certain features be enabled/disabled based on the device’s capabilities.

Using conditional statements within the code, the app can have functionalities only if a necessary piece of hardware or software exists in the device.

Here, the app must provide an alternative option or information to users in cases of non-compliance with some features.

We’ve covered some of the most common issues faced in cross-platform development. But these hurdles can be overcome with planning, tools, and choosing the right architecture.

The ability to reach a wider audience with a single codebase makes the effort well worth it. As the technology around us evolves, so too will the abilities of cross-platform development.

But for now, let’s sit tight for the next part of this blog where we cover some more challenges.

At iProgrammer, a leading IT Enablement Services (ITES) company, we house a team of 350+ experienced developers who can expertly help you navigate the complexities of cross-platform app development!

We’re more than developers, we’re your app development partner.

Together, we navigate development hurdles to create secure, high-performing apps that deliver exceptional user experiences on any device.