Mobile App Porting

The term porting refers to the act of changing a software application so that it can be adapted for use in a different hardware environment. Used in the sense of mobile app porting, this means that the software applications (also called apps) that your developer designed for use in one mobile hardware device should be amended so that the apps can be useful in other mobile hardware devices. One reason that an app owner will resort to mobile app porting is because it is cheaper than building a new mobile device app from ground zero. Silvergrey is one company that can do mobile app porting for you.

 

One reason mobile app porting can be realized is because the different computing environments are standardized already – one common standard that mobile app environments could adhere to is the ISO system. However, it is important that each mobile app is adjusted for use on the target platform if there are some subtle differences with the source platform. For this reason, you will need a skilled and experienced mobile app developer to help amend your app so that it will run on the target platform. Because of this, the developer will have to use special tools that will make porting easier, including the GNU Compiler Collection and the Autotools.

 

A porting specialist, such as Silvergrey, should know how this can work for mobile apps provided the hardware is similar enough or follow similar standards. Some aspects of the mobile apps that could be affected by differences in hardware are the video and the audio functions. This means your porting techie should not just focus on the programming language used but also on whether the new hardware environment can accept the ported program. He should also know the code of the original program architecture so he can determine what the original authors prepared for when it comes to porting. (Some original authors may not have anticipated porting in the future so this is not built into the mobile apps themselves.)

 

One common type of mobile app that can lend itself well to porting is game apps. You may find that there could be demand for a game app for different mobile devices or for different hardware environments. A good example of this is the Angry Birds game app which is very much sought after by game app users. Think of the potential profits the Angry Birds developers can realize if this game app were to be made available to a wide range of mobile devices that have the right touchscreen capabilities. This is one reason that mobile app owners want to port their app into different environments – it will increase the size of the market for such mobile apps.