Level: Introductory
Join Nick as he covers one of the most hotly contested debates in modern IT.
It's not easy being a mobile developer. Android dominates the market, iOS is still the "benchmark" platform, Windows Phone and Windows are growing fast and firmly snatched third place, and we're not really sure if BlackBerry still matters. Do you focus on one platform or many? What size of the mobile population do you really want to reach? Each mobile platform comes with its own programming languages, SDKs, IDEs and application lifecycles and architectures. Are we really expected to learn all of this? Isn't HTML5 supposed to be the Silver Bullet so we can finally write apps once and run them everywhere?
This session will demystify all these questions, walking you through the modern mobile ecosystem, and explore your options as a developer. We'll review the native story on each major platform, discuss the pros & cons of both mobile native and web development, cover some of the most popular cross-platform solutions available to developers like Xamarin and PhoneGap, and explore best practices and guidelines to insure a successful mobile strategy. Don't just blindly pick a side or assume that "one size fits all", this session covers one of the most hotly contested debates in modern IT. Come join us and be a part of the conversation.
You will learn:
- About the specifics of native app development for iOS, Android, Windows 8 and Windows Phone
- About the available mobile cross platform development alternatives, such as PhoneGap & Xamarin
- About the pros & cons of each native platform and cross-platform approach, and when to use which based on various mobile strategy objectives