Browser App Approach: Can It Be an Answer to the Challenges in Cross-Platform App Development?

Abstract

Aim/Purpose: As smartphones proliferate, many different platforms begin to emerge. The challenge to developers as well as IS educators and students is how to learn the skills to design and develop apps to run on cross-platforms. Background: For developers, the purpose of this paper is to describe an alternative to the complex native app development. For IS educators and students, the paper provides a feasible way to learn and develop fully functional mobile apps without technical burdens. Methodology: The methods used in the development of browser-based apps is prototyping. Our proposed approach is browser-based, supports cross-platforms, uses open-source standards, and takes advantage of “write-once-and-run-anywhere” (WORA) concept. Contribution: The paper illustrates the application of the browser-based approach to create a series of browser apps without high learning curve. Findings: The results show the potentials for using browser app approach to teach as well as to create new apps. Recommendations for Practitioners : Our proposed browser app development approach and example would be useful to mobile app developers/IS educators and non-technical students because the source code as well as documentations in this project are available for downloading. Future Research: For further work, we discuss the use of hybrid development framework to enhance browser apps.

Hybrid App Approach: Could It Mark the End of Native App Domination?

“…According to recent papers published by Huynh and Ghimire (2015;2017) on the development of mobile apps, there is not yet a perfect approach for creating mobile apps. Despite millions of apps on the market, it is still challenging to design and develop a mobile app that can run across platforms using the same code.…”

“…Therefore, it is technically challenging to develop a native app that can run on cross platforms including Android, iOS, and Windows devices. What works on one device does not necessarily work on other devices (Huynh & Ghimire 2017). Another reason is that there are lower-level APIs that allow native code to access device storage, sensors, and data (Charland & Leroux, 2011) and all these APIs are different from one device to another.…”

“…One of them is the browser app approach as discussed in the article by Huynh and Ghimire (2017). The proposed browser app approach is a response to the limitations of the 'separate-sites' web design strategy and the RWD technique.…”

“…The proposed browser app approach is a response to the limitations of the 'separate-sites' web design strategy and the RWD technique. In their article, Huynh and Ghimire (2017) describe the key features in the browser app approach including: deliverable apps with capabilities to run from any mobile browser, to support different devices and not platform dependent, with development based on open-source standards, and with emphasis on code reusability by taking advantage of "write-once-and-run-anywhere" (WORA) concept. The potential of the proposed browser app approach is demonstrated in the simple process of using the existing code to create a series of StoreRetrieve-Display (SRD) apps without a steep learning curve.…”

“…Android, iOS and Windows apps are all designed based on proprietary hardware platforms. Any changes in OS or hardware render the apps inoperable or incompatible (Huynh & Ghimire, 2017).…”