Creating smartphone applications for more than one operating system requires knowledge of several code languages, more code maintenance, higher development costs and longer development time. To make this easier cross-platform tools (CPTs) exist. But using a CPT can decrease performance of the application. Applications with low performance are more likely to get uninstalled and this makes developers lose income. There are four main CPT approaches hybrid, interpreter, web and cross-compiler. Each has different disadvantages .and advantages. This study will examine the performance difference between two CPTs, Codename One and PhoneGap. The performance measurements, CPU load, memory usage, energy consumption, time execution and application size will be made to compare the CPTs. If cross-compilers have better performance than other CPT approaches will also be investigated. An experiment where three applications are created with native Android, Codename One and PhoneGap will be made and performance measurements will be made. A literature study with research from IEEE and Engineering village will be conducted on different CPT approaches. PhoneGap performed best with shortest execution time, least energy consumption and least CPU usage while Codename One had smallest application size and least memory usage. The research available on performance for CPTs is short and not well done. The difference between PhoneGap and Codename One is not big except for writing to SQLite. No basis was found for the statement that cross-compilers have better performance than other CPT approaches.

Marknaden för de allt populärare smarta telefonerna är splittrad. Detta innebär nya utmaningar för utvecklare. Vill man vara säker på att nå mer än hälften av sin målgrupp med en mobilapplikation så måste man utveckla för minst två plattformar, något som kostar både tid och pengar. Ett antal så kallade multiplattformsverktyg har tagits fram för att lösa detta problem. Dessa låter utvecklare använda en och samma kodbas för flera olika plattformar. Därmed slipper man dubbel- eller trippelarbetet som följer med native-utveckling. Men håller multiplattformsverktygen måttet? Denna granskning visar att prestandan och upplevelsen vid användning blir sämre, men tidsvinsten är potentiellt stor. För små och mellanstora projekt där prestandan är underordnad utvecklingstid, kostnad och räckvidd kan hybridverktyg vara ett lämpligt alternativ. / Smartphones are becoming more and more popular every day, but the market is divided. With this come new challenges for developers. To reach more then half the user base, you have to develop for at least two platforms, something that costs time and money. A number of multiplatform tools have been developed to try and offset this issue, and allows developers to code once, and deploy to many different types of systems. This could potentially mean that the extra work of creating native applications for multiple platforms could be avoided. But do these tools really live up to what they claim? This survey shows that the usage of these tools render the applications performance and user-experience lackluster, however, the potential time savings could be quite substantial. For small and mid-sized projects where performance is subordinate to the time of development, cost and user-base reach, these tools could be a suitable alternative.

Creating native mobile application on multiple platforms generate a lot of duplicate code. This thesis has evaluated if the code quality attribute modifiability improves when migrating to React Native. One Android and one iOS codebase existed for an application and a third codebase was developed with React Native. The measurements of the codebases were based on the SQMMA-model. The metrics for the model were collected with static analyzers created specifically for this project. The results created consists of graphs that show the modifiability for some specific components over time and graphs that show the stability of the platforms. These graphs show that when measuring code metrics on applications over time it is better to do this on a large codebase that has been developed for some time. When calculating a modifiability value the sum of the metrics and the average value of the metrics between files should be used and it is shown that the React Native platform seems to be more stable than native.

Mobile platform fragmentation is one of the main challenges of mobile development today, forcing developers to develop one application for each targeted platform, which significantly impacts time and cost for application development and maintenance. The fragmentation has given rise to cross-platform application development tools and frameworks, making it possible to develop one single application compatible with several platforms. This thesis focuses on the web-based approach Progressive Web Applications (PWAs), which, in contrast to previous approaches, targets both mobile and desktop devices. We aim to point out the supported features, evaluate their suitability for QR code scanning, and their performance compared to alternative approaches on iOS. We specifically cover a feature set of 33 features and measure response times, CPU and memory utilization, geolocation accuracy, and QR code scanning correctness. We developed three benchmark artifacts for the performance analysis: a PWA, a React Native application, and a native iOS application, and conducted automated run-time experiments using the tools Xcode and XCUITest. The performance evaluation shows that native applications performed best in memory and CPU utilization, whereas React Native achieved the shortest response times. The feature evaluation shows that the majority of the features are supported or partially supported for PWAs, and that the support continues to grow. Still, PWAs lack support for crucial mobile features such as push notifications and background synchronization, making PWAs insufficient for advanced mobile application development on iOS. Nevertheless, this study shows that PWAs are well worth considering for applications with low requirements. / Fragmentering av mobilplattformar är en av de största utmaningarna inom mobilutveckling, vilket tvingar utvecklare att utveckla en applikation för varje specific plattform, vilket avsevärt påverkar tid och kostnad för applikationsutveckling och underhåll. Fragmenteringen har gett upphov till plattformsoberoende applikationsutvecklingsverktyg och ramverk, vilka möjliggör utveckling av en enda applikation kompatibel med flertalet plattformar. Det här examensarbetet fokuserar på det webbaserade tillvägagångssättet Progressiva Webb Applikationers (PWAs), som till skillnad från tidigare tillvägagångssätt, riktar sig till både mobila och stationära enheter. Den här studien syftar till att reda ut vilka funktioner som stöds av PWAs, utvärdera PWAs lämplighet för QR-kodskanning och deras prestanda jämfört med alternativa tillvägagångssätt på iOS. Mer specifikt täcker den här stiduen en evaluering av 33 essentiella mobilfunktioner samt en prestandaanalys genom mätning av svarstid, CPU- och minnesanvändning, geolokaliseringsnoggrannhet och QR-kodsskanning korrekthet. Vi utvecklade tre benchmark-artefakter för prestandaanalysen: en PWA, en React Native-applikation och en inbyggd iOS-applikation, och genomförde automatiserade experiment med verktygen Xcode och XCUITest. Prestandautvärderingen visar att inbyggda applikationer presterade bäst i minne och CPU-användning, medan React Native uppnådde de kortaste svarstiderna. Funktionsutvärderingen visar att majoriteten av funktionerna stöds eller delvis stöds för PWAs, och att stödet fortsätter att växa. Ändå saknar PWAs stöd för viktiga mobila funktioner som push-meddelanden och bakgrundssynkronisering, vilket gör PWAs otillräckliga för utveckling av avancerade iOS mobilapplikationer. Däremot är PWAs väl värda att överväga för applikationer med lägre krav.