Best Programming Language for Mobile Apps

Top Programming Language for Mobile Apps

Almost all our tasks today require the use of a mobile app from booking a cab to ordering your favourite pizza. According to a survey conducted by dscout in 2016, “smartphone users touch their phones 2,617 times each day, and spend an average of 145 daily minutes on their mobile phones.” Mobile users are one of the most active consumers.

Today, one is connected to his relative or friend thousands of miles away. Every information and data is available at the click of an icon. There are hundreds of apps available for communication, travelling or playing games.

As this mobile market continues to dominate the digital marketing realm, a lot of businesses are capitalizing on the latest mobile technology – mobile apps, to create brand awareness, acquire customers, and increase revenue.

Millions of people use smart phones today; therefore you need to build compatible mobile apps. With such fierce competition to occupy screen space in a user’s device, an app should be attractive as it is functional. For that, you need the right programming language that’s compatible with modern mobile platforms.

One can easily decide to develop an app, but the problem lies in the programming language used to develop the app. To help you out, here we present a list of best language to develop mobile apps and let you decide for yourself.

HTML5

First published in 2014 by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), HTML5 is the fifth and current version of the HTML standard. It is both easily readable by humans and consistently understood by computers and devices such as web browsers, parsers, etc.

Currently supported in a lot of different ways by a lot of different browsers, HTML5 from the cost-efficiency point of view, has the advantage of building on the current version of HTML thus making it easier than in the case of a completely new language. Since 2014, HTML5 is at least partially supported by most layout engines.

For your convenience, we list the pros and cons of the language.

Pros

• Reduces cost since you just have to develop a single application.
• Works across all platforms.
• Ideal for a web-fronted app.
• Less maintenance than native apps
• SEO-friendly

Cons

• Less stable than native apps.
• Have fewer offline capabilities.
• App stores can’t discover HTML5.
• Not device-optimised.

The all-famous Google Docs and Google Drive are mostly coded in HTML5. That’s not all, the Zoho app collection has over 33 productivity apps and most of them are developed in HTML5.

C#

C# is a general-purpose, object-oriented programming language. It’s been almost 23 years since C# was first created by James gosling and now in 2017 its recent version has been released. It was built along the lines of the .NET initiative and later approved to be a standard.

Gaming is a booming industry in today’s environment. Not just kids but even adults today play video games. For this purpose, C# is still one of the most predominant languages as being supported by Unity3D.
Moreover, if you are planning to develop an app, C# stands to be the most coveted languages for programming in Windows.

Pros

• C# has a familiar syntax in that it follows C.
• Fully integrated with the .NET library, providing access to a great repository of functionality and support.
• Safer than its namesakes (C/++) in that pointer types are not permitted.
• It’s based on the c language, so the structure you learn is transferable to other languages like Java, Objective C, PHP, and C++
• C# apps can be written for various devices like mobile, Mac etc with the help of tools like Xamarin Studio, Mono framework etc.

Cons

• Obviously less efficient in execution than C/++ because it is ultimately interpreted.
• Still allows pointers in ‘unsafe’ blocks.
• Loses any cross-platform capabilities because of the integration with .NET.
• Used to build enterprise-level programs, C# is used in Visual Studio, AutoCAD and other softwares alike.

JAVA

First being Developed at Sun Microsystems, Java is a general purpose programming language used for developing mobile apps. One of the main advantages of using JAVA is that it can be run in a browser window as well as a virtual machine. Not ideal when one intends to develop iOS apps, JAVA definitely helps when developing mobile applications across platforms.

Java has been specially designed in such a way that it has very few implementation dependencies. Based on the principle of WORA – “write once, run anywhere”, compiled Java code is compatible with all platforms that support Java.

Pros

• Automatic Memory Management implemented by Garbage Collection and no explicit Pointers.
• Lots of available code and third-party libraries.
• Does not slow your computer speed.
• Comprehensive documentation.

Cons

• Bugs in JVM implementations (all JVMs are not created equal).
• Difficult to blur distinction between classes and object when desired, which increases the need/want for HOF’s.
• Requires an interpreter.
• Large memory footprint.

Java is the preferred language when it comes to developing Android mobile apps.

Objective-C

According to Wikipedia Objective-C is a general-purpose, object-oriented programming language. Apple utilises Objective C extensively in its OS X and iOS operating systems so much so that it is fully integrated into their iOS and MacOS frameworks.

A picture speaks a thousand words: Objective C is a highly graphic language dealing in I/O and display functions.
C is considered to be the mother language of all, and if once you master it then finding other languages tough is highly unlikely. Similarly, Objective-C will not be a difficult language for people already familiar with the programming platform.

Mentioned below are the pros and cons of using Objective-C to develop your mobile app.

Pros

• Being an object-oriented programming (OOP) language, Objective-C’s premise was built on SmallTalk.
• Being familiar with Objective-C’s SmallTalk style OOP syntax can help you get hold of the OOP concepts much easily than starting with another language.
• Most important pro is, you develop iOS Apps. Apps based on sensors like Camera, Accelerometer are easy to create.

Cons

• One needs to extensively practice the language to master it.
• You need to learn OOP first (object-oriented programming).
• Apple has its own programming methodology which is why it stands alone in the market with its unique products.

One increasing concern for all Objective-C developers is that it is being replaced by Swift, another programming language used by Apple.

Swift

Swift is a recent language released in 2014 by Apple for it iOS operating systems and Linux. Keeping in mind that it was developed by Apple, Swift was designed in such a way that it would be compatible with Apple’s Cocoa and Cocoa Touch frameworks. One way Swift is better than Objective C is that it is more resilient to erroneous code (“safer”) and definitely more concise.

Swift is the way ahead for developers as it eliminates security vulnerabilities of Objective-C, addresses common programming errors like null pointers.

Objective-C vs. Swift

• The Swift syntax is precise and clear whereas Objective-C is based on C, which is hard to master on its own.
• Swift accommodates all the good features of other programming languages like Java, Python etc. whereas its counterpart is unique and therefore its syntax is difficult.
• Unlike Objective-C, swift is very safe to use.
• Unlike Objective-C, swift can only be compiled in dynamic frameworks.

Swift is slowly replacing Objective-C the proof of which is its demand which has increased by 600% making them the most hired developers.

SlideShare iOS app is the most famous Apple store app developed completely in Swift.

Conclusion

One of the most important parts of mobile app development still remains the decision to use programming language. These determine how your app will function and work in the long run. You need to choose the language that will cater to the needs of your customer providing full satisfaction and functionability.