Master’s degree thesis INF951 Mobile cross-platform development in fragmentized environments Daniel Andreas Ravnestad Huus Number of pages including this page: 145 Sandane, 30.12.2015 Mandatory statement Each student is responsible for complying with rules and regulations that relate to examinations and to academic work in general. The purpose of the mandatory statement is to make students aware of their responsibility and the consequences of cheating. Failure to complete the statement does not excuse students from their responsibility. Please complete the mandatory statement by placing a mark in each box for statements 1-6 below. 1. I/we hereby declare that my/our paper/assignment is my/our own work, and that I/we have not used other sources or received other help than mentioned in the paper/assignment. 2. I/we hereby declare that this paper Mark 1. Has not been used in any other exam at another each box: department/university/university college 1. 2. 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I/we are aware of the University College’s rules and regulation for using sources 3 Publication agreement ECTS credits: 45 Supervisor: Ketil Danielsen Agreement on electronic publication of master thesis Author(s) have copyright to the thesis, including the exclusive right to publish the document (The Copyright Act §2). All theses fulfilling the requirements will be registered and published in Brage HiM, with the approval of the author(s). Theses with a confidentiality agreement will not be published. I/we hereby give Molde University College the right to, free of charge, make the thesis available for electronic publication: yes no Is there an agreement of confidentiality? yes no (A supplementary confidentiality agreement must be filled in) - If yes: Can the thesis be online published when the period of confidentiality is expired? yes no Date: 30.12.2015 Preface This thesis is a part of the Applied Informatics master program in Molde University College. A prerequisite for students attending the Applied Informatics master program is that the student works for a business while studying. I have been working as a software developer in Adcom Molde and the work presented in this thesis have also been a collaboration together with Adcom Molde. With a great interest in new technology, writing this thesis about mobile application development was a great opportunity for me to learn more about new technology in my field of work and at the same time, research a topic that would greatly benefit my employer and their customers. I started working for Adcom Molde in 2009, where I have been in charge of the software engineering of a work order system used by Norwegian power plant companies. During my work in Adcom Molde I have faced many tasks and challenges on various issues, but the need for mobility was a recurring topic related to the ELA software. This thesis have been an effort to create a mobile application solution that would fit the size of Adcom Molde and at the same time fit their customer’s needs. Writing the master thesis has been a truly great endeavour and one that I could not have overcome without the continued support from my loving family and wife. I would also like to thank my colleagues in Adcom Molde and especially the development department for their support in this challenging task, I could not have asked for better colleagues and I look forward to our next projects. I am also very grateful for the valuable feedback from my supervisor Ketil Danielsen, who have lead me through the thesis with much needed help and support. Finally, I would like to use this opportunity to honour the memory of one of the best teacher I had at Molde University College, Ola Bø. He started as my supervisor for this thesis, but sadly passed away due to sickness. He was an excellent teacher and a good man. Daniel Andreas Ravnestad Huus Summary The mobile landscape have gone through major changes since the introduction of iOS and Android smartphones. This newly found industry have become a multi-billion dollar industry. With the increased possibilities and extended use of mobile devices for both personal and professional use, software companies and developers alike have to keep up with these technological advances if they expect to be able to create relevant software solutions. This thesis focused on the inability of creating mobile applications that can work on all devices with regard to stakeholders and developers in a small company. Choosing an incorrect development method can become a very costly affair and can be crippling for smaller companies. One of the causes for this inability is a result of various types of fragmentation in mobile devices which can add a great deal of complexity to mobile software development. This thesis sought out to find a mobile development strategy that would allow Adcom Molde, a relatively small Norwegian company, to create a mobile application for their customers. To achieve this goal the thesis first investigated various aspects of fragmentation to see in what extent they existed in the global mobile market and in the company’s customer’s market segment. Mobile development methods where reviewed and based on the needs and prerequisites of the company together with the fragmentation findings a development strategy was defined to eliminate potential pitfalls and costly project expenses. The development strategy was then implemented and a mobile web application was created. The finding of this thesis supports the choice of development method, based on the prerequisite of the company and its target audience. The thesis found that the alternative methods would have been more costly and time consuming or would not fit with the resources that were available in the company. 6 Contents This thesis follows the action research template similar to the one described by Santos and Travassos (2011, 67). 1. Introduction .............................................................................................................. 18 1.1 Problem description .......................................................................................... 18 1.2 Project context .................................................................................................. 18 1.3 Research theme ................................................................................................. 19 1.4 Thesis outline .................................................................................................... 21 2. Mobile technology and fragmentation ................................................................... 22 Fragmentation definition ................................................................................... 22 Mobile devices definition ................................................................................. 22 Fragmentation types on mobile devices ............................................................ 22 Software fragmentation .......................................................................... 23 Hardware fragmentation ........................................................................ 23 User preference fragmentation ............................................................... 24 Environmental fragmentation ................................................................ 25 Mobile application types ................................................................................... 25 Native applications ................................................................................. 25 Web Applications ................................................................................... 28 Hybrid applications ................................................................................ 28 Fragmentation solutions .................................................................................... 29 MANUAL-MULTI ................................................................................ 30 DERIVE-MULTI ................................................................................... 30 SINGLE-ADAPT ................................................................................... 33 3. Research goals .......................................................................................................... 36 Research questions ............................................................................................ 36 ELA customer group ......................................................................................... 38 Largest mobile platforms .................................................................................. 38 Mobile market ..................................................................................................