Cross-Platform Mobile App Development in Industry: A Multiple Case-Study

Abstract

Cross-platform frameworks for mobile application development are pervasive and allow developers to build applications that can operate on a spectrum of mobile platforms. With the high availability of such frameworks, it is imperative to give better understanding about the perception of industry and the challenges they face in this field. Although there are several studies in this field of research, only few research works investigate cross-platform mobile development in the industrial contexts in-depth. We conducted a qualitative research using multiple case-study approach. Interviews and focus groups methods were applied to gather information from four different software development companies in Palestine. This study aims at understanding industrial teams approach to mobile cross-platform development. In particular, it seeks to identify the challenges they face in the areas of code maintenance and software testing. Our findings cover the important aspects in industrial contexts, including the development process, as well as, how and why the cross-platform development approach is chosen. From the practitioners’ perspectives, we argue that the developers’ experience is the most influential factor in the development process. Further, our study investigates the different cross-platform technologies in the industry, and the dominant one from the practitioners’ perspectives, where they agreed that the React-Native is the promising and dominant technology. From the challenges perspective, we found that the APIs provided by the vendors are not easy to operate by developers and considered to be a major challenge. Finally, this research investigates how testing and maintenance methodologies are applied along with their challenges.