Comparing Qt Mobile with native mobile development

[ChiliPalmer]

Hi everyone,

I work for a company that develops its products with Qt/C++, but in the near future we plan to create apps, both for Android and iOs.
I've had some personal experience using the Android SDK while creating a few small apps for myself.

I've been discussing whether we should use Qt Mobile oder native SDKs with someone at work on and off for a while now. He argues that with Qt Mobile we just have to build the app once, using a SDK we know well. While that's perfectly true I think that there are just too many drawbacks:

• The user will need Qt, making the app much larger than neccessary
• We either have a generic look and feel for all platforms or have to create different UIs to recreate native look and feel, which is, I think, very important
• Whenever there are platform changes we will have to wait for the Qt Team to integrate them into Qt Mobile
• As this will be a client-server App there really won't be much going on besides the UI
• I'm a little worried about performance on older phones
• We don't have any experience with Qt Quick and, to be honest, I don't really care for it

So, my question is: What do you prefer, Qt Mobile or native development, and why?

[anda_skoa]

That all depends on a lot of factors.

As you said there are drawbacks like package size when using Qt.

Obviously there are also drawbacks when using native SDKs.
For example if you don't already have skilled Java and Objective-C developers, then using the respective native SDKs would require new hiring or training.

If the application has any logic despite UI then sharing the same logic across platforms will lead to more consistent behavior and reduce maintenance costs (bugs only need to be fixed once).

Neither approach requires having the same generic interface nor requires to have different interfaces.

Cheers,
_

[vickytintu]

Qt exists since more than 20 years and supports many platforms. Now Qt can be faster on ios and android than apps done with their respective native apps. So Qt is the better one.