Is it better to develop on both mobile platforms in parallel or sequentially? [closed]

Question

We would like to develop an application that runs on both iOS and Android. We cannot come to a decision however whether it is better to first create the application on one platform and once we are satisfied, replicate it on the other, or finalize UX decisions in the beginning and develop the platforms in parallel.

The application is simple and we have the resources for developing it. It is just a question of whether to develop the platforms sequentially or in parallel and if sequentially, then which platform to start with (again assuming resource allocation is not an issue).

Answer 1

As for me, developing both versions at the same time always means more time. You can have your design, workflow, architecture perfectly defined, but there'll always be changes during the development (not to say if there's an external client making decisions). If you're developing for both platforms in parallel, chances are that you will implement those changes twice, while if you first finish your app in one platform, you shouldn't find more unexpected surprises in the second one.

The next question then would be: which platform should I start from? I choose Android for two main reasons:

• It's a lot easier to refactor code / project structure (at least for me) in eclipse than xcode.

• I design the user interface keeping in mind the largest resolution (Android xxhdpi), then I cut my final png assets once using android resources naming conventions (which is more restrictive than ios), and run automated tasks for the rest of densities (xhdpi, hdpi, mdpi, iOS and iOS@2x)

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Regarding cross-platform frameworks (i.e. phonegap), imho the effort will never be divided by two, and the user experience will never be close to the experience reached with a native application. Unless your app is extremely simple, I'd highly discourage these kind of frameworks.