The Truth About Native App Development: What You Need to Know

Embarking upon a mobile app development project poses a vital, if not a critical, question at its very inception: does the project require the native dev approach, or does it merit utilizing a common dev framework? As everyone knows by now, the native choice necessitates the development of two sets of code, one for Android and another for iOS, to be maintained ad infinitum separately throughout the project’s life.

On the other hand, a mobile development framework provides the convenience of developing and running your app through just a single code base. At first glance, one would wonder why anyone would want to select the native approach, given the inefficiencies in maintaining two code sets. Even with that significant consideration which sets back the cause of native app development, most apps today are developed natively.

Why do decision-makers choose native over cross-platform? The answer is not as cut and dry as you might think, and the element of risk management plays a prominent role in this process. Suppose the management chooses a cross-platform native framework at the project’s inception. In that case, those making that decision will be held accountable for any issues arising from that choice over the safer and significantly costlier option: the native.

After all, who could pick a bone with the native development choice? It is the ultimate luxury afforded by companies with deep pockets and risk-savvy CTOs. They can easily argue that the native route draws the organization nearer to those that have created the phone hardware, which will guarantee software and tooling compatibility over the long run.

But the reality cannot be any further than this self-serving business (and not a technical) decision. Native development is only required when the app utilizes device-specific features heavily. We are talking about apps that may be processing complex animation or might contain augmented reality functionality. The truth is that native development for business applications is not only a grossly inefficient utilization of resources but creates complexities far beyond what one can predict throughout the app development lifecycle.

To be sure, cross-platform app development is not a panacea. Yet, even with complications introduced with cross-platform development, the benefits far exceed native development in most cases. Let’s review some of the risks concerning selecting a cross-platform framework for your project and how you can mitigate them:

1. With cross-platform dev, you depend highly on a third-party vendor who may deprecate their framework and leave you high and dry. That could never happen with the native tooling. Although this may be true, the reality is that cross-platform development has evolved tremendously in the past 10+ years, and major software vendors now stand behind the noteworthy cross-platform frameworks. With Meta standing behind React Native, Google behind Flutter, and Microsoft behind Xamarin, there is a meager chance of being left high and dry by selecting any of these frameworks. Therefore, the lack of safety in selecting Native over cross-platform is an argument that is increasingly invalid, if not wholly baseless, in today’s epoch.

2. There is a risk of facing performance issues with cross-platform tooling. Once again, this may be true with a sliver of apps that heavily utilize device features. The app performance issues, in most cases, can be remediated with proper architecture and utilization of third-party modules designed explicitly for a framework to overcome bottlenecks. The app marketplace is so vast in today’s international landscape that cross-platform frameworks now attract the support of third-party vendors in droves.

3. Even if you can’t find a third-party vendor to address an app need that necessitates the support of a device-specific feature, almost all app frameworks provide toolkits to write a module natively and utilize it within your app. To be clear, you are then responsible for supporting a single native module within your app instead of having to support your entire app natively!

4. What about the app’s native look and feel? Don’t you get a better UX with a native implementation? That is yet another myth perpetuated by ignorance. If you utilize a cross-platform native framework (such as React Native, Flutter, or Xamarin), you get the same UI/UX you would otherwise obtain, creating everything natively.

The single most significant drawback of a cross-platform framework is to task a single code base with seamlessly executing for two platforms. You may face many issues along the way to make a single code base efficiently compile into a native binary without becoming excessively complex and difficult to maintain over the long run. You may effectively manage these issues by enforcing design and coding best practices within a uniform/singular team of architects and developers.

The code complexity issue, contrasted with maintaining two separate code bases of the native approach, may be considered a necessary evil. Maintaining two different tracks of development in the native process presents some daunting challenges:

1. The sheer scale of resources required to develop and maintain two separate code bases that deliver identical functionality is enormous. Add to the fact that nowadays, there is also a need for a virtually matching web app to support browser-based devices, which adds a third dimension to this puzzle and hence a third team specializing in JavaScript/HTML to deliver web functionality. Modern app frameworks offer app/web functionality within a single code base, further simplifying matters.

2. Keeping the two (or three, depending on web needs) in sync is monumentally difficult. Yes, you may see identical outward functionality in each platform, but unless you run a very tight ship, each approach may have implemented each functionality differently. For example, some content elements may have been hard-coded within an Android implementation. Conversely, the companion iOS and web approach push the same content into the app from a back-end resource. This variation creates an architectural schism that may cause significant issues when this content requires revision. In the native approach, keeping all platform implementations architecturally in sync is nearly impossible.

3. Platform teams run in silos and do whatever it takes to implement within tight schedules and hope to go back and remediate the resulting technical debt later. Even in the worst possible cases, when you discover significant deviations from best practices within a single platform, there is no stomach for disciplinary action from the management. You can’t afford to be hostile to your tech talent. So, it is better not to have an opening for such problems to exist than count on all platform engineers to sing kumbaya together and deliver model code that they actively synchronized across all delivery channels.

4. The cost of native development exceeds having to maintain siloed resources. All the ancillary costs of maintaining three branches (including the web) across the dev lifecycle continue to add up.

I believe within the past five years, the app development process crossed an imaginary plateau where native development is becoming an increasingly riskier proposition than using cross-platform tooling. The latter has become far more sophisticated and reliable over time. In contrast, the complexity of mobile apps, in terms of the sheer volume of features they support and deliver, has grown enormously, further exasperating the support required for native development.

I don’t think I would have uttered such words a few years back. Yet, I believe native development is appropriate only for a slim minority of app cases where the cross-platform approach has been firmly examined and deemed not viable in technical terms. Therefore, the first question nowadays when embarking on a new app project is, “Why can’t we do this using a cross-platform app framework?”