Selecting The Most Appropriate Programming Language For Mobile Application Development

When selecting programming languages, frameworks, and SDKs for mobile applications, you must consider both the frontend (UI) and backend (server-side) development environments. The developers who code the frontend are frequently not the same as those who code the backend, but they frequently collaborate (they are in enterprises anyway).

We’ll explore the finest iOS and Android programming languages and frameworks for designing mobile apps and backends in this article.

The various types of mobile applications

From a coding standpoint, developers can construct one of three sorts of mobile applications:

Native mobile apps are those written language that the device OS vendor natively supports. The app code has complete access to the underlying platform APIs, while the OS provides the UI component library. The build process compiles this code into an executable application using the OS’s native bytecode.

Cross-platform mobile applications are those created in a single language and capable of running on multiple systems. When developing cross-platform mobile applications, the language in which the application is written may not be the native language of the underlying device operating system. This means that you can confine, bridge or cross-compile the code into bytecode that which you could execute it directly on the operating system with the assistance of some support libraries.

Mobile web apps are a lightweight paradigm in which you open a URL in the browser on your smartphone, but they have the appearance and feel of a native mobile app. Although you cannot load mobile websites as an app on the device, they are a key paradigm to consider when developing for mobile.

Two web site programming paradigms:

Responsive web programming is a technique of website development in which the website layout adapts to the form factor of the device. Thus, rather of requiring horizontal scrolling, the content “snaps” into position to fit the width of the device. You can access these websites using a desktop computer. On IBM Developer, you may learn about the newest trends in responsive design.

Progressive web programming develops progressive web apps, which are standard webpages that appear to be typical mobile apps when accessed via a mobile device’s browser. They provide a nearly app-like experience. You can add progressive web apps to the home screen (as an app icon), and they can also run offline when the device is not connected to the internet by caching the content locally on the device.

Developing iOS mobile applications

Apple developed the iOS platform. The iOS platform is available for smartphones (iPhone) and tablets (iPad) (iPad). You may design apps for the iOS platform and then target both the iPhone and iPad with the same software. While developing the app, you must consider the available real estate on each device. You can download iOS applications from the Apple app store and installed on your iPhone or iPad.

To develop iOS applications, you’ll need an Apple developer account and the Xcode IDE installed on a Mac computer. On a Windows PC alone, you cannot successfully develop and debug. Xcode includes the entire Apple development toolkit required for iOS development: SDKs, a code editor, compile/build tools, simulators, and a debugger. You will need to utilise either CocoaPods or Carthage as package managers to integrate third-party SDKs or to deliver your own SDK.

They can develop apps for iOS devices using either the native iOS SDK with Objective-C and Swift or through the use of numerous cross platform technologies written against the SDK of another framework but optimised for iOS.

Objective-C

Apple first supported Objective-C for developing iOS mobile applications. It is an object-oriented (OO) language with syntax derived from C and OO-ness derived from SmallTalk.

One of the most frequent criticisms levelled at the language is that its syntax is clumsy due to its verbosity, and the square brackets are difficult to debug. However, it is a solid and mature language, having been widely used for some years.

Since Apple introduced Swift, Objective-popularity C’s for new iOS mobile development has dwindled significantly.

Swift

Apple introduced Swift as a language specification in 2014 and made it available for mobile application development in 2015 through Xcode. Swift has surpassed Objective-C as the language for writing native iOS apps following a major redesign of the Swift language in 2016 (v 3.0).

While Swift and Objective-C may coexist, that is, you can use Objective-C libraries and Objective-C utilities in Swift, Apple is making it very clear that Swift is the new default language for developing iOS apps. Swift is a more straightforward, simpler, and concise programming language than Objective-C. Swift developers should have little difficulty transitioning from Objective-C.

Developing Android-based mobile applications

Android is an developed open source platform and Google will market it. Google promotes its own Pixel smartphone brand (and the earlier brand, Nexus). However, a number of manufacturers, including Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, and Oppo, sell their own-brand smartphones and tablets that run Android or Android derivatives such as CyanogenMod and MIUI. Android devices are available in a wide variety of form factors, from phones to tablets, due to the fact that a variety of manufacturers offer several models that cater to a variety of user tastes.