Platforms for mobile development and my HNG 11 journey
Published: 2024-06-28 22:24:13

## **The need for mobile development**
While software products can be accessible with web applications, there is a pressing need to develop these softwares for mobile applications, some of the needs are explained below

1. **Performancce**: Mobile apps tends to be more performant than web applications as they directly access the native hardware modules such speakers, fingerprint sensors, camera e.t.c as compared to web browsers

2. **Security and data protection**: Let's be honest, we don't where these cookies collected by websites are really used for, mobile apps offers less data tracking, local first security with device caching without involving third party apps (web browsers).

3. **Strict deployment policies** : Deploying malicious mobile apps have reduced chances as compared to web applications, apps downloaded from secure platforms such as Google play store, Apple's app store are thoroughly check for malicious content hence increasing the integrity of mobile apps 

## **Mobile app development platforms (or tools)**
There are two platforms where mobile applications can be developed, they are ;
1. Single Platform Tools

2. Cross Platform Tools

**Single Platform Tools**
These applications are built with a codebase  to run on a specific operating system, these specific platforms can be any of the following ; Android OS, IOS. the major development tool for android specific application is Java (or Kotlin), for IOS we have Swift

**Pros of single platform tools:**

- **Blazingly fast**: the tools are faster than their cross platform counterparts

- **Better Performance**: Kotlin and Swift respectively access the native modules of their devices and hence offers better performance

**Cons of single platform applications:**
- **Expensive to build**:To build for android and ios mobile phone, you'll need to higher two different teams of engineers

- **Longer development time or sprint**:Building with two different tools for a single product (mobile app) can take longer time to build and test

**Cross Platform Tools**
These apps are deployed with the slogan of "Write Once, Ship anywhere", you can have a single codebase to deploy to android, ios, desktop, web or even TV OS, these tools are wonderful as they save development time.
leading giants for these tools are flutter (Dart), react native (Javascript/Typescript).

**Pros of cross platform tools**

- **Cheap to build**: these apps are less expensive to build as your require only one language to build fir multiple platforms

- **Time saving**: building and testing for both platforms are less time consuming as compared to single platform tools

**Cons of cross platform tools**

-Cross platform apps are significantly less faster and less performant than platform specific apps because of their architecture. the architecture involves using bridges to communicate with the native module of the device.

## **My Journey with HNG 11 **
My name is Omamoke Jeffrey, although I commonly go with Neon on the tech space, I am a fullstack developer (Web/Mobile), I code in python javascript and typescript (with Golang in view), a HNG X finalist as a backend developer.
This will be my 3rd time trying HNG internship and my second time as a finalist (Hopefully Lol).
My reasons for joining as an intern again? it's actually very simple. firstly, I miss the rage, the thrills of solving problems on very slim deadlines. secondly, somehow I didn't become a mentor this year. thirdly, I need some hardcore mobile development experience.
The right place to challenge yourself to overcome your version impossible is the HNG space, it's definitely not for the weak minded, but there's a guaranteed increase in self value when you finish the program (literally speaking from experience). I am here for a good time, and once again another HNG certificate.

Here are some useful links to gain a great deal of insight about the HNG space {% embed https://hng.tech/internship %}  {% embed https://hng.tech/hire %}