Impact of Cross-Platform Development Frameworks on the Performance of Mobile Communications for Short Distances
Impact of Cross-Platform Development Frameworks on the Performance of Mobile Communications for Short Distances

Summary/Abstract: This paper proposes an analysis of the impact generated by usage of cross-platform frameworks for mobile applications on the performance of communications technologies for short distance between mobile devices. The analysis is based on comparative practical tests performed on the Android operating system by using an application made both native and cross platform. Developing mobile applications generally involves the use of different programming techniques and specific tools, which increases the number of possible human errors, resulting in higher development and maintenance costs. To solve these problems, different solutions have been created for the development of applications capable of running in different software ecosystems using the same code. These solutions are called cross platform frameworks. The main solutions that are used in present are achieved through cross-platform compilation techniques, web and mobile-web techniques. Each solution provides to the developer specific tools and mechanisms in order to create for the user the impression of uniqueness and the UX with which he is already accustomed. Depending on the chosen technical solution, we will have a greater or lesser impact on the overall performance of the application which, of course, also affect performance of the interaction between the device of interacting between devices using short distance communication techniques for mobile devices. In order to determine the impact generated by use of cross platform development frameworks on performance, a test application has been deployed to transmit and receive data over the various communication techniques. The application was developed using both cross-platform and native technologies. The analyzed frameworks are: Xamarin as the main representative of the cross-platform compilation solution and PhoneGap as a representative of the mobile web category. Following comparative tests, could be observed that the best performance was achieved in the cross-platform compilation process, with a 10.6% decrease of performance compared to native cases, while web-based techniques create a depreciation of 34.4%. Impairment of performance varies according to the size of the transmitted data, thus, as the size of the interchanged data increases, the performance decreases. This can be explained by the time added by multiple data call-backs between the block where the cross application running and the native operating system controllers who serve them. This article will examine how performance is affected in case of various short distance communication techniques supported by cross-platform frameworks, by using the comparative test method and will present the conclusions and issues that need to be considered when choosing the right technical solution..

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