I heard customers’ saying “cost of maintaining two native apps is too high”. Now we have a solution for it – Mobile Development Kit(MDK). It’s been quite some time since SAP released the Mobile Development Kit. But, I couldn’t find many people talking about it that’s why I thought to write about its importance. It is a beautiful framework to build native mobile apps for Android and iOS with a single code base.
Cross-platform apps are of different types. But, what MDK can provide you is a native mobile app(not hybrid) with the help of a single developer.
Experience
Everyone wanted to find out the user experience, UI controls and the performance it provides. There is a way to check it. SAP has released its first app built on MDK called SAP Asset Manager. You can download it from Apple Store or Google Play and experience the app running on your devices. I am sure you will love the performance!
Development
Developing MDK based apps is using SAP Web IDE. Most importantly, the programming skills required to build such apps are minimal due to the simplicity of the development tool. Moreover, a developer needs to learn the tooling well(he may find it propriety).
On the other hand, the Debugging of the app is provided through Visual Studio Code(a popular code editor). You must import an already existing app from SAP Web IDE to start debugging. Because you can’t create MDK projects with VS Code. However, it can help you develop or modify the app. In addition, you need to install the MDK extension on VS Code.
So, where it can be used? It is mostly focusing on complex B2B and B2E mobile apps. It has a strong framework especially to support sophisticated enterprise applications. For example, apps that have many pages, large amounts of data and workflows, and the need for powerful offline support.
But, if your requirement is a B2C application the recommended approach is Native Mobile SDK.
With key features like remotely updating the app without the need for an MDM, easy customization of existing apps without coding skills, offline, cross-platform native app it is a great framework to consider for your enterprise.