Cross Platform Mobility

Transcription

1 Cross Platform Mobility Why and How to Build Cross Platform Mobile Applications Chris Auld 8 May 2012

2 WHY? MOBILE STRATEGY DISCUSSION Why mobile matters? Types of mobile apps By user class By technology approach Why cross platform matters? Does cross platform matter? Which platforms? When? HOW? MOBILE EXECUTION DISCUSSION Value in unique user experiences Cross platform options HTML+PhoneGap Mono Native x N Approaches to sharing code Mono vs PhoneGap

3 Why

4 Why Mobile Matters Does anyone in the room *not* have a smart device? Anyone in your family 15yr-65yr *not* have one? What did you use 1 st today, PC or Smart Device? How about last yesterday? Have you used an app today?

5 Morgan Stanley Research from 2009 Actual inflection point

6 Types of Mobile Apps BY USER CLASS Enterprise - Field force etc. SME/BYOD - Expense claims etc. Consumer - Mobile banking BY APPLICATION APPROACH Web Apps - It works - It s optimized - ICBINB Real Apps - Wrapped HTML - Native

7 Why Cross Platform Matters Does it matter? Does need for enterprise apps kill BYOD strategy? Application Approach Extra Cost Extra Dev Capex Org Size for Break Even Web App/Wrapped HTML 20% X-Platform Toolkit (Mono) 30% Full Native 70% $50, $75, $175, Assume: Enterprise app build of say $250k Assume: BYOD strategy to save $200/device via co-pay Assume: Three platforms supported for BYOD

8 Why Cross Platform Matters For Consumer/Public focussed apps it really does matter. ios has massive penetration in high value user segments Android is bring Smart devices to the masses Microsoft is playing catch-up, but, is prepared to buy share Think back to the first slide how do you use mobile?

9 Which Platforms? Market share? Visitor share? Your site? Some other common site? You want to target, in priority order, the platforms used by people most likely to use their mobile devices to access your service

10 Which Platforms? IRD GST Site Want to support filing GST return from mobile device Business users Blackberry is still very popular with business users Should we prioritize Blackberry? ios?

11 Which Platforms? How do app usage patterns differ? Both Android and iphone users D/L approx 10 apps /month 19% of Android users buy at least one app /month 50% of iphone users buy at least one app /month *Admob Mobile Metrics

12 How

13 Different platforms are different Deserve different treatment at the UI level

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15 Cross Platform Mobile App Dev HTML + PhoneGap Significant reuse Re-use web assets Doesn t look native Everything like ios? AppStore issues X-Browser issues No offline on WP7 Animations poor APIs unavailable Hardware access Platform specific It s Javascript Must use OSS Less productive Mono C# +.NET in VS.NET Lambdas, LINQ Delegates, Events Rich communications Access to almost all platform APIs via Mono Wrappers Go native if needed UI still written byhand Write UI for each platform +ve&-ve Platform specific UX Can write highly optimized code Games Graphics intensive apps Write the app 3 times 3 different languages 3 x code to maintain Objective C is awful 100% Shared Code 0% Shared Code

16 Shared Code with Mono Shared files co-located; *.csproj for each platform Each solution has Platform specific project Shared project Similar MVVM pattern for all platforms Shared Models Shared Repository May be able to share ViewModels Can use shared Interface + Platform Specific Implementation WindowsPhonePreferencesProvider: IDevicePreferencesProvider Can use pre-processor directives #if MONOTOUCH Can support Windows Mobile easily. No support for Blackberry

17 Shared Code with PhoneGap All files co-located A solution has General purpose HTML + HTML templates Shared CSS + JS + Images Platform specific CSS + JS + Images Use MVVM or MVC pattern for all platforms Backbone.js/Knockout.js Share everything Complexity increases as platform count increases Each platform may require some specific shims Windows Mobile not supported & Older Blackberry OS is very hard to support Older phones may get a bad experience

18 Choosing between PhoneGap or Mono PHONEGAP MONO Existing advanced HTML+JS skills Must have MVVM/MVC knowledge Existing web resources A need/desire to support browser based viewing Communications layer REST ready Existing.NET C# dev skills Useful to have MVVM/MVC knowledge Complex communications requirements Need lots of platform hooks Performance matters More productivity up-front The smaller your organization and project the more developer productivity matters Mono represents a high productivity choice even for pure one platform plays

19 Guidance By Intergen Intergen staff have been involved in developing several reference applications that are freely downloadable in source code form Project Silk (Don Smith AKL) Rich HTML+JS Web Apps. Project Liike (Don Smith AKL) Rich HTML+JS Mobile Web Apps. StockTrader v6 (Chris Auld/James Carpinter WLG + others) Massive scale Azure based app with cross platform rich client for ios, Android, WP7, HTML5+JS, Windows Metro (Mono based)

20 Mobile Matters Mobile First Do you *really* need x-platform Phone + Mono both useful options

21 Questions

22 Thank You

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