Learning by Doing: How to Develop a Cross-Platform Web App

Abstract

As mobile devices become prevalent, there is always a need for apps. How hard is it to develop an app, especially a cross-platform app? The paper shares an experience in a project that involved the development of a student services web app that can be run on cross-platform mobile devices. The paper first describes the background of the project, the clients, and the proposed solution. Then, it focuses on the step-by-step development processes and provides the illustration of written codes and techniques used. The goal is for readers to gain an understanding on how to develop a mobile-friendly web app. The paper concludes with teaching implications and offers thoughts for further development.

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

“…In the article "Learning by Doing: How to Develop a Cross-Platform Web App", Huynh and Ghimire (2015) described their work in the development of the Student Services Web App. This app is a simple cross platform Web App that provides the information of services available to students at a university.…”

“…The article ended with thoughts for further development of cross platform mobile apps. Based on the successful delivery of a functional prototype as described in Huynh and Ghimire (2015), we have taken steps to advance the project further. The first advancement that we contribute is to add more features/ functionalities to make the original web app better and more useful.…”

“…This is simply because each mobile platform works differently due to its unique hardware and OS. As reported in previous works (Huynh & Ghimire, 2015;Joorabchi, Mesbah, & Kruchten, 2013;Native, web or hybrid mobile-app development, 2012), such a technical challenge makes teaching mobile apps programming languages and tools for native apps almost out of reach for non-technical students. For instance, the Java code written for an Android app has to be converted into the Objective-C code in order to run on an Apple iOS device.…”

“…Our work is based on the previously published JITE:IIP article titled "Learning by Doing: How to Develop a Cross-Platform Web App" by Huynh and Ghimire (2015). Based on their prototype, we advance the project further by adding more features/functionalities to make the original web app better and more useful and conceptualizing the developing processes into an approach that could provide guidance for IS educators to teach and IS students to learn about app development.…”

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.…”