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Asked: 2026-05-25T14:56:50+00:00

I am working on an app for Android, but would like to have it

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I am working on an app for Android, but would like to have it ported in the future to iPhone and (if it seems to gain significant market share in the future) WP7/8.
I know nothing about any mobile platform other than Android. Should I be using C++ (NDK), Java, or something else to get as much portability as possible? I assume I will have to rewrite (or have someone rewrite) at lest part of it, but I would like to make as much of the codebase as possible portable.

Edit: It is a simple app that “scans” a barcode (camera) or has the number typed in, sends some information to a server, gets back some more info (probably in XML, but could be whatever works best) and displays it in a few simple screens.

Edit 2: The 4 parts I have, and would like to ideally make them portable are:

  1. Scan a barcode (probably the hardest to make portable)
  2. Allow entering a barcode number manually
  3. Send and receive some custom data
  4. Display a few screens (This can be in HTML, if I have an option to make it look “native”, not like the browser window displaying a webpage it is)
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  1. Editorial Team

    For a non-trivial app that isn’t a game, there are currently no mature solutions to this problem.

    Tools like Titanium Mobile and PhoneGap are meant to help you do exactly what you want, but impose limitations on what your app can do and are so far at the cutting edge of development that they often introduce bugs of their own that you won’t be able to fix. Additionally, you’re at their developer’s mercy when it comes to support for alternative platforms like WP7 or Blackberry. In some cases, these might be worth the risk, or you may get lucky, but you need to be wary before rushing to use them.

    Often, the best technique is still just to develop independent codesbases. You can model them after each other in architectural terms, and if you do so it isn’t typically that hard to translate between different platforms.

    Another technique to aid in portability for many apps is to use embedded web browsers where it makes sense. This allows you design some of your views in HTML/CSS/Javascript rather than with native UI tools, and then just load them into the aforementioned embedded web browsers on each platform.

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