At Steer73, we build apps for both SME’s and global enterprises. There hasn’t yet been a project where budget wasn’t a consideration. Our core role is to help clients spend the least amount of money to get their desired outcome.
One of the primary ways to reduce cost, without compromising on quality, is through the use of shared resources, maximising re-use wherever possible.
Often this complex topic is reduced to whether to build native apps separately for iOS and Android or to go cross-platform. It isn’t as binary as this.
We sat down with our CTO, Phil Marland, to understand how he frames the decision for our clients.
The summary… there are levels to this, ranging from build once, deploy twice, to having a completely bespoke solution with zero re-use of any resources. The right choice is dependent on the project requirements and the levels can be broken down roughly as follows :
Level 0: 100% native, bespoke apps built using native tools (Native)
Level 1: Cross-platform tools and shared resources but bespoke UX for each platform (Xamarin Native)
Level 2: Consistent app with platform-specific customisations where needed (.NET MAUI or Flutter)
Level 3: Build-once, deploy-twice (e.g. simple wrapped web-apps) (Cordova)
