Mobile tech strategies

1. MOBILE TECH
STRATEGIES
Cross Platform Innovation and Approaches
2016
www.gkim.digital
info@gkim.digital

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MOBILE CROSS PLATFORM
TECHNOLOGIES

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GKIM has been developing apps for many customers over the years. We have been
presented with many different challenges to build high quality apps, at low cost and in
double quick time.
Rising to these challenges has given us much experience in a wide range of mobile app
development technologies and methodologies, including native apps, games and cross
platform tools.
The choice of development approach depends primarily on the cost v quality trade off.
GKIM recommends ionic for speed and ReactNative for quality but ask that publishers
do not discount the good option of parallel native development. It might not cost much
more whilst quality is generally unsurpassed.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

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A relatively small percentage of a well designed mobile application
is actually OS specific.
The extra cost overhead for each extra native solution should never
be be more than 50% and could be a lot less.
Don’t lose sight of this bigger picture. Efficient architecture is as
important as the right cross pla-orm choice.
APP ANATOMY

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THE NATIVE OPTION
Native should always give best quality, assuming proper
methodologies are followed and design is implemented in parallel.
If the app is mission critical then there can be arguments to insist
on native.
QUALITY
We would argue that, native can also always be the fastest option,
assuming the availability of engineers to take a parallel
development approach.
An exception to this would be where an HTML5 solution preexists
that can be converted to a web app using tools.
TIME
Cost can be the only compelling argument for a cross platform
solution. It will be be higher but not extortionately so, as, cleverly
designed, many assets and capabilities will be OS agnostic.
Server side CMS, assets or logic behind an API.
Commonly used data or art assets.
App specific java script code libraries powering thin clients with identical logic.
COST

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Thanh Nien sought the quality of native and won a gold award because of it.
Dextr, the world’s fastest replacement keyboard, required deep integration
with native Android technologies.
Animation quality for our Nestle app would have been very hard to achieve
without native.
Social networking apps which use lots of 3rd party SDK’s which may not be
available for all cross platform tools should be native.
NATIVE APPS

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GAMES
Games, especially 3D games, require graphics capabilities
not generally supported by Unity and Cocos offer games
graphics support.
Unity generally surpasses Cocos now though has an
expensive license.
Unity let us extend its 3D graphics technologies with
patentable 3D painting capability for this ground breaking
game for DripDrops.
Cocos is good for 2D games such as these four we built for
Rakuten & Viber.

8. CROSS PLATFORM
OPTIONS
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Two main classes of Cross Platform development methodologies exist.
We discuss examples and pick our favorites.
1. OS GUI Replacement Libraries (compiled)
Tool Language Comment
ReactNative,
backed by
Facebook
Near native quality
Can co-exist within native
applications
Lower quality
Requires PhoneGap to
access native OS
JS / Markup Latest and best Native
script. IOS stable. Android
catching up.
Telerik Native
Script
JS / Markup /
CSS
More flexible, generally
compatible with Angular JE
Xamarin C# Cannot reuse js & css.
Requires new language
2. Native webkit based GUI (runtime)
Tool Language Comment
ionic HTML5 +
Angular JS
Latest and best w angular
design paherns
ReactJS HTML5 + JS Best rendering performance
Sencha HTML5 + JS Requires learning bespoke
language
Titanium HTML5 + JS Requires learning bespoke
language

9. CROSS PLATFORM
DEVELOPMENT STORIES
Non Optimal Successes
Resounding Successes
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ACRA, a large organization with mission critical apps should always be looking to native. It’s quality suffered due to their choice of Sencha.
TeleConsult was mistakenly (by another developer) started in Xamarin, costing extra effort to deliver quality.
ASN’s marketplace app, a utility, not requiring native quality, is perfect for ionic.
H&M’s HTML5 app was a major achievement to get it working on all browsers.

10. SUMMARY
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Games Platforms Native Apps OS GUI Replacement Library Web Apps
Specialist engineers and
Unity license fee required.
Cost
Quality
Parallel engineers required,
but not as expensive as only
covers part of build.
Learning curve applies before
economies of cross platform
development can be realized.
Ionic provides lowest cost
option for web experienced
engineers.
Unity can do things even
native apps cannot achieve.
Generally the best. Almost as good as native. Will have flaws in rendering,
esp animations and large
graphics.
Best in
class
Schedule Games wrihen for these
platforms can be ported to
mobile very quickly.
Effective parallel
development can still be
fastest.
Learning curve moderate.
Total dev time may be reduced.
Learning curve moderate
Total dev time may be
reduced.
Best for Games Mission critical quality,
money no object and parallel
native developers are
available.
Apps with high quality graphics
expectaions and where learning
curve is jusitified.
Utility apps where render
quality expectations are not
to demanding.

11. COST V QUALITY TRADE OFF
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