The competition between the top mobile platforms is an all out turf war. The wealthiest and most successful tech companies are going to great lengths to secure as much ground as possible. Mobile users are being courted by all possible means and the ads are sleek and never ending in their effort to win over more support. In the midst of this battle the unsung and often neglected heroes are the equally innovative and enterprising developers. The platform companies talk a big game in trying to get developers to build on their platforms but at the end of the day they know that a big user base will attract more support than anything else. Because of this the developer ends up being a second class citizen, so to speak; the low man on the totem pole, if you will. So as a neglected developer what platform do you build on? Do you build for the masses or the high rollers?

In the following paragraphs you will learn a relatively well kept secret that the most successful mobile app developers have been employing for a couple years now. When you have good and better as options and someone tells you both you have a right to be skeptical, but in the world of technology this is common place and you end up with one thing – best! Crossplatform development is absolutely the best way to develop apps. Not every developer has caught on, so we decided to outline the top reasons for converting and becoming wealthier and happier than you presently are – stick with me.

First, you will have total access to the mobile market. Right now developers who build on one platform are only able to distribute their apps to a small percentage of the total market. Even on the most popular platforms you lose out on over half of all consumers. The popularity of the App Store has given Apple a tremendous advantage in attracting talented developers, but these developers can build the same app and distribute it across all platforms without any major changes by using a crossplatform framework. This will undoubtedly raise their profitability and brand recognition. Greater access is the key and crossplatform development instantly provides this for you.

Time is of the essence. The mobile developer’s goal is to get in and out of the development cycle as quickly as possible and developing for more than one platform becomes cost prohibitive because of the time it takes to rewrite the code. Why not let a crossplatform framework do all the work for you? You write once and then publish code on the five major platforms, which happen to serve over 95 percent of mobile users worldwide. That’s efficiency for you.

Diversification is king. The next reason for developing your mobile apps on a crossplatform framework is to diversify. Each platform is marketed to a specific group, and even though you might think your app would only do well with a certain one of these groups the truth might surprise you. As the platforms and the phones they run on become ever more sophisticated we will see a cross pollination of users. Not building for every platform will box you in and keep you from being as successful as you are capable of becoming. If you have the least bit of talent and you diversify you will win.

Take advantage of advanced development environments. The mobile corporations are good at what they do, but at best they are only ok at creating the frameworks where you work. A crossplatform development environment was created with the mobile app developer specifically in mind – code your UI in HTML, code your controls in Ruby, and increase productivity with an MVC framework and an ORM. Building apps will not only become more lucrative, but it will become more enjoyable too.

Integrate native features. Building apps that incorporate the native features of the mobile device makes for happy users and greater imagination. As phones get more advanced, the apps that run on them can too. Ideas that were only a dream a year ago are now a reality. If you are not building apps that use the various features available to the user then you are leaving way too much on the table. Crossplatform development allows you to easily code these functions into your apps, and the sky is the limit as to what you can create.

Here’s another one – synced data. With a standalone server you can keep data current and available on the user’s phone. You can write apps that store data locally and then sync to the server every time they connect. This is especially valuable when building enterprise smartphone apps, and it is also a feature that you can add on to any app you build to make it much more powerful than anything else non-crossplatform developers can make. You can seamlessly link your apps to backend applications and thereby create performance and functionality never before possible.

Last, but not least, the main reason why you should consider switching to a crossplatform framework (if you needed another reason), is because everyone is doing it! That’s right you are the last person on the bandwagon – of course we are being facetious in saying this. The real reason for you and a big reason why this is becoming the leading technology for app development is because it is Open Source. Thousands of developers working together and making the process better, all for the low cost of nothing.

If you haven’t already skipped over the last half of this article in your anxiousness to get started you may now proceed. Click on any link below to begin the revolutionary crossplatform development movement. After you try it you will wonder how you ever survived without it. Thanks for joining us.

Visit us at rhomobile.com and start writing apps on the premier crossplatform mobile framework. A free signup gives you access to the software, the online hosted development environment, and the sync server – use it for consumer or enterprise smartphone apps.