1. Survey Paper & Manuscript
A Study of Software Reuse in Cross-Platform Mobile Application Development
Injung Kim
T. Shah, Z. Ahmad
National University of Sci & Tech Islamabad, Pakistan

2. Supplementary Paper
A Comparative Analysis of Cross-platform Development Approaches for Mobile Applications
S. Xanthopoulos, S. Xinogalos
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki / University of Macedonia, Greece

3. Motivation & Summary Rapid growth of the mobile application market
Android, iOS, Windows, Blackberry
Cross-platform mobile application development
Native, Web-based, Hybrid Application Development (NAD, WAD, HAD)
And more…
Software reuse in NAD, WAD, HAD

4. Mobile/Tablet OS Market Share
Background
Mobile/Tablet OS Market Share
Worldwide usage, Oct, 2017
[1]

5. Android & iOS Platforms
1 level : acts as an intermediate layer between the user applications and the underlying hardware components.
includes all pre-installed and third-party applications that extend the functionality of the device.
2 layer : audio, video technologies that create multimedia experience.
3 layer :fundamental system services that all applications use directly or indirectly,
such as security and data storage.
4 layer :necessary technologies and operating system interfaces that other layers need,
such as files, drivers and memory management.
[4] A Comparative Analysis of Cross-platform Development Approaches for Mobile Applications

6. NAD, WAD, HAD
NAD
Involves developing the application on a native mobile platform, which can be Android, iOS or Windows Phone.
WAD
Are browser-based applications that are developed using the HTML / JavaScript technologies
HAD
is a cross between NAD & WAD. HTML5 / JavaScript are used as development technologies and no detailed knowledge of the target platform is required
Hybrid applications are closing the gap bet. Native and web-based application development

7. Example of NAD
[5] IBM

8. Example of WAD
[5] IBM

9. Example of HAD
[5] IBM

10. NAD, WAD, HAD
NAD, WAD, HAD

11. Brief Comparison of NAD, WAD, HAD
[5] IBM

12. Brief Comparison of NAD, WAD, HAD

13. Detail Comparison of NAD, WAD, HAD
Native App
Mobile Web App
Hybrid App
Skills/Tools needed for cross-platform app development
Objective-C,
Java, C++, C#, VB.net
HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Web programming language
HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Web programming, mobile development framework
Apps needed to reach all major smartphone platforms 4 1
Installed on device?
Yes No
Distribution
App Store/Market
Internet
WAD:
Rendering time
Rendering Engine – this takes HTML code and interprets it into what you see visually. For instance, a tag would be interpreted by the rendering engine as a set of instructions to make the text inside of the element bold
Partial device access
# of platform
Airplane mode?

14. Detail Comparison of NAD, WAD, HAD
Native App
Mobile Web App
Hybrid App
Device integration
Full integration: (camera, microphone, GPS, gyroscope, accelerometer, file upload, contact list)
Partial integration: (GPS, gyroscope, accelerometer, file upload)
Full integration:
(camera, microphone, GPS, gyroscope, accelerometer, file upload, contact list)
Best used for
Highly graphical apps
Apps that need to reach a large consumer audience
Data-driven apps
B2B apps
Internal business apps
Cross-platform apps that need full device access
Business apps that need app store distribution

15. NAD, WAD, HAD
And more…
In interpreted apps native code is automatically generated to implement the user interface.
Generated apps are compiled just like a native app and a platform specific version of the application is created for each target platform
Market place deployment (distribution).
Evaluates whether and how easy it is to deploy apps to the app stores of mobile platforms, like Google Play or Apple’s iTunes.
Widespread technologies:
Evaluates whether apps can be created using widespread technologies, such as JavaScript.
Hardware and data access:
Evaluates whether apps have no access, limited or full access to the underlying device hardware and data.
User interface and look and feel:
Evaluates whether apps inherently support native UI components or native UI and look and feel is simulated through libraries, such as JQuery Mobile.
User-perceived performance:
Evaluates whether apps have low, medium or high performance as perceived by the end users (like loading time and execution speed) compared to a native app.
[4] A Comparative Analysis of Cross-platform Development Approaches for Mobile Applications

16. Cross-platform App RSS feeds reader application
NAD, WAD, HAD
Cross-platform App
RSS feeds reader application
LOC <= 150, Every code line is pure JavaScript w/ no need of coding anything using a native language.
[4] A Comparative Analysis of Cross-platform Development Approaches for Mobile Applications

17. Trends of Native vs. Cross-platform
NAD, WAD, HAD
Trends of Native vs. Cross-platform 8%
0.5%
x16
2017
2017
Stackoverflow trend, May, 2017
[3]

18. Software Reuse
Process of using existing software components to create new software systems
Increase of productivity, quality, reliability
Decrease of cost, implementation time

19. How Often? Single Platform Application Development
SW Reuse
How Often?
Single Platform Application Development
18.75% of Android app classes inherit from a base class in Android API
35.78% of the classes inherit from a domain-specific base class
84.23% of classes across all categories of app occur in two or more app and 17,109 apps were a direct copy of another app
Cross-Platform Application Development
Software reuse is a big challenge due to different platforms using different programming languages, SDKs, IDEs.
How much sw reuse is possible in case of NAD, WAD, HAD?

20. SW Reuse
SW Reuse in NAD
A single application is developed multiple times to support multiple mobile platforms.
Need to work from scratch
Impossible or challenging to port functionality
Even if the programming languages may be the same
Ex) Android and Blackberry both use Java for application development
there is no or very little software reuse, which greatly increases the time, effort, budget required for the development and maintenance of an application.

21. SW Reuse
SW Reuse in WAD
A single application is developed in web technologies like HTML and JavaScript and used across multiple mobile platforms.
write once and run everywhere
Provide complete software reuse
but still it carries some technical disadvantages & is not a choice of most of the developers

22. SW Reuse in HAD Provide complete software reuse
Overcome the disadvantages of web-based applications
Ex) lack of hardware access & lower performance)
Generally a web-based application wrapped in a native shell

23. Native vs. Cross-Platform Code Sharing
SW Reuse
Native vs. Cross-Platform Code Sharing
Nov, 2017
[2]

24. Conclusions Cross-platform mobile application development
Software reuse in NAD, WAD, HAD
Cross-Platform Applications Development is always good?
Worldwide usage, Oct, 2017
[2]
No! It depends on application types

25. Conclusions Cross-platform mobile application development
Software reuse in NAD, WAD, HAD
Cross-Platform Applications Development is always good?
No! It depends on application types
Security, Performance, Offline mode

26. Conclusions Cross-platform mobile application development
Software reuse in NAD, WAD, HAD
Cross-Platform Applications Development is always good?
No! It depends on application types
Security, Performance, Offline mode
There is no or very little sw reuse in NAD for an app
What about among different apps?
Libraries, Stack overflow, etc.

27. References
[1] Mobile/Tablet Operating System Market Share system-market-share.aspx?qprid=8&qpcustomd=1&qpct=3 [2] Native development vs cross-platform development: myth and reality reality/ [3] Stack overflow trends development-stack-overflow-trends/ [4] S. Xanthopoulos, S. Xinogalos “A Comparative Analysis of Cross-platform Development Approaches for Mobile Applications” [5] IBM (Worklight Inc.) “Native, Web, or Hybrid Mobile Apps?”

28. Thank you. Question?