A Model-Driven Cross-Platform App Development Process for Heterogeneous Device Classes

Abstract

App development has gained importance since the advent of smartphones to enable the ubiquitous access to information. Until now, multi- or cross-platform approaches are usually limited to different platforms for smartphones and tablets. With the recent trend towards app-enabled mobile devices, a plethora of heterogeneous devices such as smartwatches and smart TVs continues to emerge. For app developers, the situation resembles the early days of smartphones but worsened by the widely differing hardware, platform capabilities, and usage patterns. In order to tackle the identified challenges of app development beyond the boundaries of individual device classes, a systematic process built on the model-driven paradigm is presented. In addition, we demonstrate its applicability using the MAML framework to create interoperable business apps for both smartphones and smartwatches from a common, platform-independent model.