10 Best No Code App Builders (June 2025)
Startup Uses JavaScript For Cloud-Based, Native Mobile Apps
News
Startup Uses JavaScript for Cloud-Based, Native Mobile AppsStartup Synchro Labs Inc. Launched a platform for using JavaScript and the Node.Js framework to create cloud-based, cross-platform mobile apps for the enterprise, targeting the replacement of legacy intranet apps.
Now in a beta preview, the platform isn't ready for prime time production, still working out a new approach to create native mobile apps with Web-based technologies. While several solutions exist to write such apps in JavaScript (Appcelerator/Titanium, Cordova/PhoneGap, Telerik and so on), Synchro provides a client-server platform in which nearly all of the code -- even the UI logic -- resides in a cloud-based server.
Also, in this early stage at least, Synchro isn't designed for general-purpose native apps, but rather is targeting a specific niche: to basically modernize existing legacy apps -- commonly running on a company intranet -- in the new age of enterprise mobility.
"Synchro helps solve a problem facing many enterprises: the need for a fast and simple solution to convert their backlog of intranet apps to mobile," the company said in a statement yesterday announcing the new platform. "Enterprises can use Synchro to create apps that install and run on mobile devices, but where all of the application code, including client interaction logic, actually runs in the cloud."
So, while the platform does provide native apps that can be installed through stores such as Google Play and the Apple App Store (unlike pure Web-based apps), those native "apps" are just mechanisms to connect to the cloud-based code.
[Click on image for larger view.] The PropertyCross Cross Platform Benchmark Shows the Synchro Approach Uses Less Code (source: PropertyCross via Synchro Labs) Synchro co-founder Robert Dickinson expounded on this idea in an e-mail exchange with ADTmag.
"The app that a developer would distribute to their end users is created using the Synchro App Builder," Dickinson said in response to an inquiry. "This tool takes the name and icon for the app, as well as the endpoint that identifies where the app server is running, and combines that with the client code for each platform to produce the api/ipa/etc. Note that none of your app code is part of this installable app. It's just a shell that the users installs and uses to access your app.
"So the process is not unlike Appcelerator, but the result doesn't include any of your app-specific code (that's all in your app running in the cloud)," Dickinson continued. "The benefit of your code being 100 percent in the cloud is that you can make changes/updates and redeploy instantly (like you would do with a Web site) without having to update and redeploy the mobile client app."
[Click on image for larger view.] Synchro Uses the MVVM Design Pattern (source: Synchro Labs) With its focus on intranet app replacement, where the legacy apps are generally "connected" apps which primarily interact with live services in the same infrastructure, Synchro doesn't provide apps that work without Internet or network connectivity, just like the Web-based apps they're meant to replace, Dickinson noted.
Synchro president and CEO Dickinson, a veteran industry entrepreneur, was in Portland, Ore., announcing and demonstrating the technology of the new Synchro platform at the Node.Js Interactive Conference, which concludes today.
Node.Js is an integral part of the Synchro platform, with the npm package manager being used to install the Synchro command-line interface (CLI), create apps and run the Synchro server as a Node.Js server instance.
While the Synchro App Builder -- used to create branded binary distributable apps that point to the server instance -- is in beta preview and not publicly available yet, the company does provide a "Synchro Civics" app available through the three major app stores, which serves as an example app created with the App Builder. It uses less than 200 lines of JavaScript code, running in the cloud, to show users their government representatives at various levels, based on the user's address, the company said.
The company also has Synchro Explorer mobile app preconfigured with endpoints pointing to the Synchro Civics endpoint and a Synchro Samples endpoint, which can help interested developers explore and test the technology. The company has provided Synchro CLI and Synchro API samples and documentation on GitHub.
"We've been telling developers that if they get an app ready to distribute, they can open a support ticket and we'll build their binaries for them," Dickinson told ADTmag. "Eventually this will be something you will be able to do from our Web site.
"You can follow the instructions on our 'Get Started' link and actually get an app built and running using our Synchro Explorer client to test with right now," Dickinson continued. "Once you get a server app running and ready to deploy, that's when the Synchro App Builder can help (or we can help manually in the interim)."
Dickinson also clarified the company's technology approach, which the company said was inspired by modern data binding techniques and the Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) design pattern, which separates presentation from logic, with views providing the UI, models providing the back-end data and ViewModels providing the connections between the two. Thus MVVM is well suited for the Synchro approach in which there's a strong separation between the client view and the client application logic.
"The Synchro apps that developers write contain views which describe what is on a given screen/page," Dickinson said. "When that view is presented to the mobile client, our client code builds an appropriate native client interface (using native themes, controls, etc). We don't render in a WebView (we do have a WebView control that you can use if your app wants to render Web content, but our app interface itself is native and not replying on a WebView). The views are usually platform agnostic, but you can get use platform-specific controls and advanced filtering if you want to really polish the app for a given platform."
The Redmond, Wash.-based Synchro Labs was founded last year, with only Dickinson and Blake Ramsdell being listed on the company's About Us page. According to the company's pricing page, besides the free developer edition available to single developers, other plans range from $99 per month to $999 per month for unlimited usage.
About the Author
David Ramel is an editor and writer at Converge 360.
Facebook Releases React Native For Building Native Mobile Apps In JavaScript
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Facebook Releases React Native for Building Native Mobile Apps in JavaScriptThe highly anticipated React Native project from Facebook has been officially open sourced and released, possibly heralding a sea wave change in mobile app UI development practices.
The new project from Facebook -- released today at the ongoing F8 developer conference -- eschews many best-practice conventions in favor of a new approach. Like myriad hybrid techniques, React Native is based on JavaScript. Unlike many other alternatives, though, it doesn't provide a cross-platform wrapper to access native functionality on devices. Rather, Facebook has developed a framework that lets developers use JSX -- a Facebook JavaScript variant -- to hook into native widgets and such, reportedly resulting in true native apps with the same performance, look and feel, and behavior.
However, React Native -- announced at a February Facebook conference -- isn't a complete framework for mobile app development. It's often positioned as a good tool to produce the "view" part of apps created with the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture. Facebook is at work producing companion tools, though, such as Relay and GraphQL for querying and fetching data.
And instead of a cross-platform, "write-once, run anywhere," approach, Facebook champions a new paradigm: "learn once, write anywhere." The idea is that big teams working on big projects -- this is from Facebook, after all -- can use React Native to build -- say, an iOS app -- and then turn around and use the same skills, knowledge and tools to build an Android app. With all the developers on the same page, technology-wise, app development is said to be easier and quicker.
[Click on image for larger view.] An iOS Xcode Project Showing a Truly Native Movie App and its JavaScript Source Code.(source: Facebook developer video screenshot) Android apps will have to wait, however, as the initial edition of React Native only targets Apple iOS devices. Android support is on tap.
React Native is based on the company's popular React for Web technology, which has seen increasing use in the Web world in the two years since its introduction. It allows for the mixing of logic and presentation -- long considered a no-no in modern development. React is based on components -- units of code that act somewhat like classes -- that take in data and produce HTML based on that data. Individual components can provide certain specific functionality and be chained together for projects, encouraging reuse and simplifying the reasoning of program logic.
"Since React components are just pure, side-effect-free functions that return what our views look like at any point in time, we never need to read from our underlying rendered view implementation in order to write to it," said project leader Tom Occhino in a blog post today.
"With React Native, you can use the standard platform components such as UITabBar and UINavigationController on iOS," Facebook says on its React Native site. "This gives your app a consistent look and feel with the rest of the platform ecosystem, and keeps the quality bar high. These components are easily incorporated into your app using their React component counterparts, such as TabBarIOS and NavigatorIOS."
While the original React for Web and React Native have provoked strong skepticism on the part of many developers, many others have expressed enthusiasm and high hopes for the project, including prominent industry developers who think it could be a major disruption in how developers build native mobile apps. Here's one recent reaction on Twitter:
Along with other new projects such as NativeScript from Progress Software Corp. Subsidiary Telerik, React Native is significantly changing the JavaScript development landscape, joining cross-platform initiatives such as Appcelerator/Titanium.
"Today, we're excited to open-source React Native for iOS and make it available on GitHub," Occhino said. "Android support is coming soon, and we're also continuing full steam ahead on React for the Web, but we wanted to get this initial iOS support out as early as possible so we can get input from others who are also excited about this approach. Keep in mind that there are probably many things that are either broken or not implemented yet. We welcome your feedback and contributions, and we can't wait to see what you'll build!"
David Ramel is an editor and writer at Converge 360.
What's Next For The Glimmer Mobile JavaScript Library
Library for mobile apps getting custom bytecode for faster loading and even performance improvements
Glimmer, a library for building mobile applications that arose out of the Ember.Js front-end JavaScript stack, will use custom bytecode to improve web application loading on mobile devices.
The Glimmer UI component library features a virtual machine architecture similar to the JVM in Java and Microsoft's Common Language Runtime. This virtual machine is built to run inside the browser for use in web UIs. Glimmer and Ember also feature the Handlebars open source library for templating. Because Glimmer is the rendering engine for Ember, improvements in Glimmer help Ember as well.
New features speed compilation and mobile app performanceAlso known as Glimmerjs, Glimmer now compiles templates to JSON, which parses quicker than JavaScript. Developers write in either JavaScript or TypeScript.
But an experimental beta version eliminates the parsing cost by compiling to custom bytecode, eliminating a performance bottleneck on low-end smartphones, said Tom Dale, codeveloper of Glimmer and Ember and a senior staff software engineer at LinkedIn. The experimental code has also shown performance benefits on an iPhone as well.
The next production version of Glimmer will incorporate the new custon bytecode approach, though no release date has been set for that next production version.
Other new features planned for GlimmerAlso expected in that next Glimmer version are features to improve the performance of applications in the browser. These include:
You can download Glimmer technologies on Github. Developers can try out the beta bytecode version from the Glimmer playground and clicking the π button in the bottom right corner to see decompiled output.
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