Develop Reference

Building the app for Web also

Can Nativescript build apps for web as well?
As Ionicframework and similar uses Cordova to build Android and iOS the same code there can be served by an HTTP server to the mobile or desktop browsers.
Will that be possible with the apps built with Nativescript, using same code base for web version of the app?
Nowadays Angular integration is on the way, and using Angular for the mvc kind of things (like data bindings, events etc.) and using Native for the device apis, platform apis and native gui would help in an unequaled way.
Angular parts can be used in the browser as well when built for it. What to do with the xml written for the gui templates in Nativescript, they could be converted to proper html for web built of the app, as Nativescript itself already uses a unified gui api for different platforms, that could be possible. And lastly, native calls made in NativeScript would be ignored in the web build.
It would be great to build for Android, iOS, and Web with the same exact code base.

tl;dr: No
Longer: The big difference between the Cordova/Phonegap based technologies (such as Ionic and Supersonic) and the Dynamic Runtime based technologies (such as NativeScript, React Native and Titanium) is that the first uses a HTML approach where the application is run by WebKit/Blink in a WebView. Looking on the Dynamic Runtime technologies there's no HTML Engine running your app, but rather native views and widgets. The framework (in this case NativeScript) is "just" a bridge between Javascript and the native language of the device.
However, depending of how you architecture your code, you can create Javascript which will be usable in both a NativeScript environment as well as in a browser environment.
Edit: The above means that you could reuse some of your code. There'll still be NativeScript specific code.
Edit2: There's an ongoing project to enable usage of Angular 2 in NativeScript. Please see current status in the issue: https://github.com/NativeScript/NativeScript/issues/103 Also note that the Telerik NativeScript core developer Valentin Stoychev is saying
The idea [is] to enable as much code reuse as possible between your web and mobile apps.
So: Yes on code reuse - no on exact same codebase.

Adding to the (correct) response of Emil - I do not think it is possible to have any significant portion of the app shared (even for the logic part) since {N} apps mostly utilize the Nativscript observable implementation which would probably 'leak' into your models / view models.
Having said that, I suggest you to monitor the work happening on integrating Angular2, which would probably mean a larger code sharing potential (with Angular2 web apps)

IOS and Android Developing in Windows

I am currently developing Android Applications and would like to enter into IOS developing. Many have advised the use of cross platform development tools. I hav searched and found nothing solid. Can anyone suggest a good cross platform deveoping IDE for IOS and Android. Please give suggestions that is sure to work.

I have worked with these both Cross platforms. these are simple to use.
Appcelerator Titanium for cross platform applications.
Using this you can Create rich native iOS, Android, hybrid, and mobile web apps from a single JavaScript-based SDK
PhoneGap
Developing with PhoneGap gives you the freedom to create mobile applications for iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone, Palm WebOS, Bada and Symbian using the web code you know and love: HTML, CSS and Javascript.

Cordova/PhoneGap works well between iOS and Android but the down side is that you have to use HTML and javascript to implement your application. Native elements such as maps require quite a lot of work although there are many plugins for them. Unfortunately plugins are not standard.
Style sheets and html are good, because they make it relatively easy to scale the application over the huge array of screen sizes.
Window phone has problems with standards and old models are quite slow, but perhaps there is an improvement in WP8.

Naive Query on Developing a Mobile Application

I have developed application for android based mobile using Java. I have tried developing apps for Windows based mobile phones using C# and heard about iOS that one would need to know Objective C.
Wondering if there is any way to have one language to develop an application that can run on all these platforms. I understand every operating system executes programs having different binaries that it execute. But just wondering if there is any common platform like JRE that is run on these mobile operating systems.
Thanks for the reply

Short of working with HTML mobile webapps, I reckon your closest bet to a common language between the 3 platforms would be C# using Mono.
Check out Mono for Android and MonoTouch for iOS both supported by the same company.
Whilst you could probably use the same language for your apps and even share internal APIs across the different platforms, you would still start to encounter differences in how the UI is handled on each of the platforms.

There is a project: http://www.appcelerator.com/platform which can be used for writing apps for Android and iOS... But from my experience I can tell that this is good only for simple prototype apps. The more fancy app, the bigger issues you would have with it.

Hybrid apps for iOS/Android/Windows 8

I hope this question is specific enough. I have a client for whom I made an iOS native app and an Android native app (same app, different platform). It's a fixed pixel design (I made this work for Android somehow:) and it works on iPad, iPhone and most Android devices (with some letterboxing). Now I am asked to write the same app for the Windows store and they want me to use HTML and JavaScript. My question is, when I use HTML and JavaScript, would it be "easy" for me to use this code into some sort of hybrid solution (PhoneGap, etc)? The app doesn't need much complicated functionality but does need to support push notifications on iOS and it needs to be able to play videos, preferably HLS. Any advice on what the best hybrid solution and do hybrid solutions allow you to build for Windows 8?

I'm a cross-platform developer working on PhoneGap and Titanium Appcelerator. The correct answer is "It depends". Currently the state of cross-platform development is not very recommendable. Yes, you can write plugins for PhoneGap and it does support windows phone but you will have a ridiculously hard time getting them to communicate with each other properly. I learnt this from experience.
If it was a hacking/hobby project to further the cause then I would say go for it but for a time-bound client project like yours, I would recommend against cross-platform solutions and go native instead. Plus native always gives considerably better control, speed and ease of development. You will probably develop it faster in native than cross platform anyway. I've played around with windows SDK and it seems easy to use and well-built with good documentation and you can use C# which is similar to Java since you have already used it on android.
You can also build windows 8 desktop apps using html and javascript natively but this isn't present in windows phone 8 yet.
As I mentioned, If you don't need too many native controls, then you can go cross-platform. For your requirements, it can be done. If you have already developed android and ios apps and only need windows app now, then going native would be easier. But if you have to make all 3 then you can go cross platform if your requirements are restricted to what you mention. Here's a good quora thread that discusses the pro's and cons:
http://www.quora.com/Is-Titanium-good-for-developing-iPhone-apps

Take a look on Xamarin
Main idea - they brings real native code for all platforms.
They have instruments to compile C# code that it can be used at all platforms
For example you should create UI in XCode (for iPhone) and use ModoDevelop to create DAL/BLL, then you can re-use C# code base over all other platforms
They have cross-platform iPhone/Android/WP7/W8 samples on GitHub
Also see Q&A on Stackoverflow tagged Xamaring

We are starting to build multiple apps for multiple clients both in IOS and Android native platforms. The problem is we are going completely native which is taking too much time.
I would like to look at the linked in method (http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/10/a-behind-the-scenes-look-at-linkedins-mobile-engineering/) which is a more hybrid approach using HTML and native code.
The problem is I don't think Phonegap is that good - good for prototyping but maybe not for full versions of apps as it can be a bit slow and a bit buggy.
I would like to look into doing a model where we create like 65% HTML and 35% native to that device (like linked in)
Would anyone have any suggestions for this? Would people say we need a massive development team to pull such an approach off?
I welcome thought:)
Thanks

Android application dev using the SDK or HTML, CSS and JS

Last night I learnt that it is possible to develop apps for Android using HTML, CSS and JavaScript, much like you would do a client side website. Is this a widely used approach? Because I have started to learn developing with the SDK but I naturally know more about HTML, CSS and Javascript, so I'd like to leverage that knowledge if possible.
So basically my question boils down to this: Are Android web apps as good as native apps? Can the same functionality be achieved through web apps?
Regards
Renault

Check http://www.phonegap.com/start/#android
PhoneGap is based Web Technologies HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
It's very simple to use it. Try it.

Check out Appcelerator Titanium
While other HTML/Css/JS frameworks run your apps inside a web-browser-like environment, Appcelerator claims to run your apps natively. And it seems (almost?) all the functionality that can be achieved through native apps can also be achieved through their SDK.
They also have several convenience features like directly running the app on an emulator or a device, packaging the app for deployment etc., and Titanium Developer runs on Windows, Linux and OS X.