Mobile Apps

Apple’s iOS is the second-most widely installed mobile operating system in the world and applications are mainly built using elements of the UIKit programming framework. UIKit offers customization, while also keeping the consistent look and feel of iOS. We write the code for these apps in the iOS Software Development Kit (SDK) with supported programming languages like Objective-C and Swift.

Between being the world’s most widely installed mobile operating system and its openness to developers and designers, Android offers almost limitless possibilities. Android Studio features a build system that allows our developers to customize builds and generate multiple variants for different devices within a single project. The Android operating system has a well-deserved reputation for enabling development teams to work faster, write better code (in Kotlin, Java, and C/C++ languages), and be more productive.

.NET MAUI is Microsoft’s open-source framework for building native apps for iOS, Android, macOS, and Windows from a single C# codebase. It’s the successor to Xamarin.Forms, and we use it for new cross-platform apps and for Xamarin migrations.

Uno Platform is an open-source .NET framework for building one app that runs on iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, Linux, and the web from a single C# and XAML codebase. It uses WinUI’s APIs, so existing Windows and UWP code carries over, and it’s a strong path for modernizing older Xamarin and desktop apps.

Blazor Hybrid runs Blazor web components inside a native .NET MAUI, WPF, or Windows Forms app, with full access to the device. Teams can share one set of UI components between a web app and its mobile and desktop versions instead of building each one separately.

At Trailhead, we leverage React Native to streamline mobile app development using the most common web technologies. This allows us to maintain a unified codebase for both iOS and Android, ensuring efficient development, quicker iterations, and cost-effectiveness, all while delivering a high-quality user experience across platforms.

Flutter is Google’s open-source framework for building iOS, Android, web, and desktop apps from a single Dart codebase. It draws its own UI, so an app looks the same on every platform, and it compiles to native code for fast performance. We use it when a team already works in Dart or wants an identical design on every device. 

Ionic is an open-source framework for building cross-platform mobile applications using web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It offers a significant advantage in that it allows developers to create one codebase that can be deployed on multiple platforms, including iOS and Android, saving time and effort compared to developing separate native apps for each platform.

Azure Notification Hubs sends push notifications to iOS, Android, and Windows devices through one API, handling Apple’s and Google’s push services behind the scenes. It scales to millions of devices and supports tags and templates, so an app can reach one user, a segment, or everyone with personalized messages.