Mobile app development is as popular as every nowadays. With more companies opting to make their own mobile apps, it is important to choose from among the top programming languages available.
Developing mobile applications is as popular as every these days. With more organizations, stores and all sorts of businesses opting to make their own application to provide to their clientele, the question is what the most popular languages for mobile app development to choose from.
With the hype of mobile devices, a lot of software developers are also mobile app developers. The market is ever growing and there is plenty of room for anyone interested in developing applications for different mobile platforms and devices.
THE TREMENDOUS GROWTH OF MOBILE APP DEVELOPMENT
Mobile application development is the most vital part of the mobile device ecosystem. With the amazing success of smart phones, wearable’s smart TV’s, tablets and others, mobile application development has leaped into a state of tremendous growth. Out of the 19 million software developers worldwide, 8.7 million of them are mobile application developers. With sales of smart phones predicted to reach 1.4 billion in units this year, there never has been a time to get into mobile app development than now. Ever since iPhone was launched in 2007, mobile apps have become a big industry with plenty of money thrown around.
When it comes to mobile app development, the most important decision is the programming language an app is to be written in. A lot times, developers are fixed on a programming language for obvious reasons. Choosing a language for the development is influenced sets of factors that include the mobile device, platform and the target market.
TOP PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES FOR MOBILE APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT
JAVA
It is the most preferred language among Android application developers. Java is an object-oriented programing language that could be compiled and could be run with or without a browser and it runs well on mobile devices. It remained the de factor industry standard language over the years because of its platform independence as well as other killer attributes. Java is used if the primary platform is Android. On its 20th birthday back in 2015, there were plenty of reasons to celebrate. Java is one of the most widely used languages in the world, with an estimate of 9 million developers. Furthermore, it’s also useful in the development of cross platform applications. However, if iOS is the main aim, it may not be the best choice.
HTML5
A markup language, HTML is used for structuring and presenting content on the web. It’s one of the best programming languages that can be used to provide applications on either mobiles or web. Features include rationalize input parameters, simple data types insertion, level the browser playing field, accounting for various screen size and more. However, it’s still a proposed standard, which is supported differently by various web browsers at present. Nevertheless, HTML5 has also a shallow learning curve, which makes it easier to learn compared to an entirely new language.
SWIFT
Swift is a programming language by Apple that’s designed to eradicate the likelihood of possible vulnerability in security that could arise with Objective-C. It’s armed with the APIs Cocoa touch and Cocoa of Apple and works with Objective-C. Gradually, Swift is rising, replacing Objective-C as the in-house language of Apple. For developers who are only into Apple mobile application development, Swift is the one language to master.
OBJECTIVE-C
Is a superset of the C programming language that is made to cater to Apple’s development frameworks of iOS and MacOS. The language could do all of the things that C++ can, from display functions and graphics to I/O. The language is highly Apple centric and is replaced fast by Swift, Apple’s other programming language.
C++
It was the programming language that ruled the world of programming even before the smart phone and Java era. This makes it one important language which laid the foundation to a lot of other spin offs. Hailed usually by experience mobile application developers, in general it is used to develop Android and Windows mobile applications. It enables mobile applications to be developed for practically every purpose each existing platform.
C#
C Sharp does for Windows, what Objective-C does for Apple. It is the most important programming language that is used in developing Windows mobile applications. It’s an expansion of the C programming languages and addresses a lot of unique Windows platform features.
WHICH LANGUAGE TO GO WITH
For any developer, the programming language to choose could be the difference between huge success and tremendous frustration. Some decisions could be obvious, while some are just based on the technical knowledge and availability of the developer. As with all programming endeavors, there’s no right or wrong answer. The languages have their own use and benefits. When considering to develop for the two major operating systems, Android and iOS, then Java and Swift are great places to begin.
The mobile app development trend continues to grow every year. With the number of smart phones growing, there is plenty of room for mobile app development and the more programming languages to use.
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