The best possible way to develop your next Android and iOS application.
April 10, 2018
The best possible way to develop your next Android and iOS application.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with NativeScript
I currently use NativeScript for multiple applications that are in various stages of development. In my opinion, NativeScript is one of the best if not the best frameworks to write Android and iOS Applications. With NativeScript I'm able to reuse concepts and knowledge of existing frameworks such as Angular or Vue.js to build Applications that actually use native elements and have native performance.
A common problem with multi-platform development is eventually you will encounter a situation where the framework doesn't have a feature you need to complete a task. This is true for all multi-platform frameworks, including NativeScript. However, with NativeScript you have access to the native API for iOS and Android. This allows us as developers to solve our own problems and not lose momentum whereas other frameworks we would be at the mercy of plugin developers or have to write Java and/or Objective C code ourselves to sometimes solve very small but frustrating tasks.
A common problem with multi-platform development is eventually you will encounter a situation where the framework doesn't have a feature you need to complete a task. This is true for all multi-platform frameworks, including NativeScript. However, with NativeScript you have access to the native API for iOS and Android. This allows us as developers to solve our own problems and not lose momentum whereas other frameworks we would be at the mercy of plugin developers or have to write Java and/or Objective C code ourselves to sometimes solve very small but frustrating tasks.
- Code Reuse - With NativeScript you can share code between Native and Mobile Applications.
- Native APIs - being able to access Native APIs allows us as developers to write applications in one language instead of jumping between the Java/Objective C apps are written in TypeScript or JavaScript.
- Ease of use - NativeScript SideKick makes working with NativeScript a breeze and allows us to get an application set up for development in a few minutes.
- Occasionally there are inconsistencies when it comes to styling and layouts between Android and iOS, this can be frustrating especially in the beginning because you are usually working with one platform and then switch to the other only to have layout issues.
- New releases sometimes are buggy.
- Development time is significantly smaller.
- Projects that I wanted to tackle are now extremely accessible
I've looked into and worked with multiple frame works such as Phonegap/Cordova, Ionic, and React Native. While they all allowed developers to create multi-platform applications easily, with different degrees of performance, I found them all to fall short in once you reached a point where the frame work didn't do exactly what you needed it too. At that point then you have to write Objective-C or Java to accomplish your goals and on top of that learn how to write that code so it is accessible for the frame work your are using. This would have made most of the applications I've worked one extremely more daunting because unless your app is very simplistic you are more than likely going to encounter a situation where the framework doesn't meet all your needs. By being able to access native API's directly from JavaScript/TypeScript you are able to bypass this inevitable headache.