2016 Bring New Cross Platform App Development Tools And Oportunities

Unity is one of many powerful tools allowing you to easily develop cross platform apps. Image credit: Unity.


If you’re a technology fan or just like new things you probably have read websites like TechCrunch, Wired, Engadget and Forbes. You must have noticed new smartphones and tablets coming out every month. Bigger, faster, thinner, lighter…


The same is happening with the mobile software. It’s amazing. If you compared what we had in 2011, just five years ago, and today, you’d notice that we don’t need to use our laptop or desktop computers for many tasks anymore. You can order food, travel, rent a place, meet new people, learn, teach and do things you never imagined you could do, all from your mobile device.


Despite the dominance of key players (Google and Apple) in the mobile devices industry, we’re seeing new players and products entering the market every year. And even amongst the goliath Apple, once known for its uniformity in devices, we’ve seen them launch several different shapes and sizes of mobile devices in the market now. Android is well-known for its thousands of different form factors and screen sizes. So what does it mean for the app developer? It means there are big questions about what kind of apps to develop, what OS to optimize for, and ultimately tools and platforms to use in the design and development process.



Over the past couple of years, along with the growing needs of app developers, the app development platform and tools market has evolved and grown as well. A few years ago you needed a team of highly-skilled mobile developers and designers to create an app. And you were building it from scratch in an IDE (integrated development environment).


But today, seasoned and aspiring developers can both access numerous of types of tools that enabling them to create and launch apps faster than ever. Most important, you can now create cross-platform apps that will enable you to reach more users no matter the location, income or device type. Best of all, most of these tools let you focus on what matters most: delighting your users.


Let’s take a look at some of the latest cross-platform app development tools available in 2016. If there is a tool I missed, make sure to leave a comment or a tweet.






Xamarin





Image credit: Xamarin.


Xamarin is a Microsoft-owned software company. With C# codebase, you can develop Android, iOS and Windows apps with the powerful cross-platform development tool Xamarin. One key feature is that Xamarin allows code sharing in multiple platforms. Xamarin has a cloud service, which allows testing any number of devices.


Pricing: $25 – $158/month


Kinvey





Image credit: Kinvey.


Kinvey is a backend service that helps developers and enterprises to set up and operate a cloud backend for their mobile, tablet and web apps. You can easily secure mobile data and identify, standardize backend integrations, and scale up or down with turn-on infrastructure.


Pricing: $24,000 – $60,000 app/year


Mag+





Image credit: Mag+.


Mag+ app SDK allows developers to build on top of their core components, saving hundreds of man-hours of coding. Also, there is an app for iPad which provides the fastest, simplest publishing platform for creating content optimized for mobile devices, without the need for programming skills.


Pricing: $499 – $2,999/month






Xojo





Image credit: Xojo.


Xojo is a development tool targeting Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, x86 Linux, iOS, as well as the web and Raspberry Pi. Xojo offers Xojo Cloud for easy, secure, maintenance-free web app hosting.


Pricing: $99 – $1,999/year


Corona Labs





Image credit: Corona Labs.



Corona supports all major platforms, including Android, iOS, Windows. Corona’s tool is specially made for building 2D graphics games and educational apps.


Pricing: $79 – $199/monthDropsource






Dropsource





Image credit: Dropsource.


Dropsource was built for developers to more efficiently design, build and deploy iOS and Android apps from scratch right in the web browser. Build your app using drag and drop, connect apps with any RESTful API, and Dropsource uses automated programming to generate clean and succinct source code for you. Then you can download to launch in the app store or customize the source code in an IDE.


Pricing: Free (during beta), $20 – $75/month






Yapp





Image credit: Yapp.


Yapp enables users to create personalized mobile applications for their events, gatherings and groups. It’s one of the easiest and most affordable way to create and instantly publish mobile event apps. Engage and delight participants.


Pricing: $399 – $1,599/app






Cocos2D






Image credit: Cocos2D.


Cocos2D is a place to create 2D apps and publish from a single code base to mobile, desktop, the web, and console. It gives multiple options for languages in which your code can be written. Such as cocos2d-objc, cocos2d-x that uses C++ as a language, cocos2d-JS uses JavaScript, cocos2d-XNA uses C#, ocos2d- swift uses objective C, etc.










Kony





Image credit: Kony.


Kony is a mobile application development platform for building mobile, tablet, desktop, and kiosk applications. It’s one of several platform supports that developers can use to build mobile applications for consumers and enterprises.


Pricing: $15 – $29 user/month






Unity





Image credit: Unity.


Unity is one of the biggest game development platforms. You can use Unity to build high-quality 3D and 2D games, deploy them across mobile, desktop, VR/AR, consoles, PC, mobile devices, and websites.


Pricing: $75/month










Appcelerator





Image credit: Appcelerator.


Appcelerator is a mobile app development platform delivers great native apps, rich MBaaS, and real-time mobile analytics. It supports JavaScript as a core language for writing a code with an alloy of MVC framework.


Pricing: $39 – $259/month






GameSalad






Image credit: GameSalad.


GameSalad revolutionizes learning through applied game development. Composing games in a drag-and-drop fashion, using visual editors and a behavior-based logic system. It’s built for creative professionals such as graphic designers, animators, and game developers for rapidly prototyping, building and self-publishing cross-platform games and interactive media.






Pricing: $19 – $29/month










BiznessApps





Image credit: BiznessApps.


BiznessApps is an affordable and simple place for small businesses to making mobile apps. It’s an iPhone, iPad, Android & HTML5 app platform that allows any small business to simultaneously create, edit, and manage mobile apps and mobile websites online without any programming knowledge needed.


Pricing: $29 – $59/month






MobinCube





Image credit: MobinCube.


MobinCube is a drag and drop, web-based app builder which lets non-developers build their own mobile apps using a series of templates. It allows you to create applications for smartphones and tablets with no technical knowledge, build for iPhone/iPad, Android, and Windows Phone.


Pricing: $10 – $100/month










AppsMoment






Image credit: AppsMoment.


AppsMoment is an application builder for iPhone, Android, iPad and Kindle App without coding. With more than 300 app templates and 120 features, you will be able to create your first app.






Pricing: $49 – $197










What is holding you back from developing your own app?


There is no more excuse left not to develop your own app. Tools are there. You just need to invest your time and very little money to get your app out in the market.






Haven't got the time or maybe too many ideas? Give us a call and we can listen, think, and work with you to get your idea into your hands. Contact us now






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