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I'm new to cross platform development world, and in my final study project i have to design and develop a cross platform mobile application (android,iphone,windows phone).

I will have to implement these functionalities:

  • Making calls
  • Sendins sms/mms
  • USSD commands

I did some research about phoneGap,titanium and some other tools. I found that for example, with phoneGap i will have to use additional plugins in native language of the os to be able to send sms or making calls. So i'm wondering if an app that will have these features should be developped in native language.

So what do you think? What tool should i choose?

Is a cross platform app with these features can be scalable and efficient?

N Ks
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3 Answers3

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If you target for a native and cross-platform app, you will need to learn Java (for android), Objective-C (for ios) and C# (for windows phone). In case you don't want to learn the three programming languages but you need to develop a cross-platform app, you can try PhoneGap or other related tools. But it's best to choose native development as it's more efficient and stable.

Herks
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  • the company that i'm doing an interniship with for 4 months target a cross-platform app. However after doing some research i found that the main features of the app will be hard to develop using for example html5 with phonegap . I will have to use plugins in native language wich will be time consuming to develop them since i don't have any knowledge in objective-C for example . so i'm trying to make sur if this approch can satisfy my needs or should i convince the company to develop a native app for example an android app since i have experience in it .i will appreciate any advice. – N Ks Feb 28 '13 at 11:28
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    Native apps have better performance and consistent layout if compared to web apps. PhoneGap is good for simple and lightweight apps, but not complex apps. – Herks Feb 28 '13 at 11:36
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While you'll certainly get the best possible performance with native, you have to maintain multiple apps. For the most part however, web technology solutions can be as performant as you need them to be for the majority of problems if you know what you're doing and aren't relying on clumsy hamfisted libraries like jQuery mobile.

Things that would work against phonegap as a choice:

  • The UI is very complex and you know very little about web technology
  • The UI is moderately complex and you need to support 3+ years-older phones but don't know a lot about web technology
  • You hate JavaScript

If this is just a simple 2-3 page app with basic UI I can't think of any good reason not to use phonegap. Most features available to native apps are available to phonegap.

Erik Reppen
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  • i know a little about web technology however the UI is not very complexe but i'm worried about the none visual logic like making calls and recover the results of USSD commands. – N Ks Feb 28 '13 at 15:17
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I know this is an old question and maybe already resolved but I am providing my thoughts hoping it would help someone else also..

It depends on your application whether to choose Native App or Web-based App(using PhoneGap,etc.). The following article will help you in deciding:

http://public.dhe.ibm.com/common/ssi/ecm/en/wsw14182usen/WSW14182USEN.PDF

Native Apps will provide better stability and performance efficiency for medium to large apps.

For Native Apps, I think Xamarin is the best tool available so far. You develop a common base code(that accesses database) for all the platforms. Each platform will have a different UI layer and your UI layer will call the common base..so you just need to maintain the UI layer for different platforms.

technoNJ
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