There are two mobile platforms that matter most to app developers today, Android and iOS. Developing an app that runs natively on both platforms traditionally means writing code twice, each time in a different programming language. Telerik, however, offers a quicker and easier alternative, NativeScript, a framework that can be used to develop native cross-platform apps using just JavaScript, CSS, and XML.

Because NativeScript apps use native user interface components in their user interfaces, from a user's point of view, they are identical to apps built using native tools. Internally, they make use of a fast JavaScript engine—the V8 JavaScript Engine on Android and JavaScriptCore on iOS—to execute the JavaScript that powers them.

Since its first preview release in June 2014, NativeScript has seen a lot of improvements. Today, it has grown into a mature framework that is being used by thousands of app developers.

NativeScript 1.7.1, the current stable release, has lots of useful features, such as Angular 2 support, direct access to a platform's native API, declarative user interface design, and MVVM support, all of which make it a far better alternative to other cross-platform app development frameworks.

With the recent launch of Telerik UI for NativeScript, app developers can now also leverage a variety of native, rich user interface components, such as ListView and SideDrawer, in their NativeScript apps.

NativeScript is an open source framework. You can always download it and work with it directly using its command line interface (CLI). However, by using the Telerik Platform to develop NativeScript apps, you can dramatically boost your productivity. The latest release of the Telerik Platform includes major enhancements that simplify native app development using NativeScript. In fact, most of the handy features the platform offers for hybrid app development, including view templates, are now available for native app development as well.

You might now be asking yourself how you can get started with this new approach to native app development. Well, the best way, perhaps, is to learn directly from the people who created the framework.

On April 27 2016, Telerik is hosting a free webinar during which Rob Lauer, Brandon Satrom, Eigil Poulsen, and Jen Looper will be showing you how to develop native Android and iOS apps using the Telerik Platform and NativeScript. They will also be talking about using Telerik UI and Angular 2 in NativeScript apps. Like all their other webinars, I'm sure this one too is going to be fun and informative. Reserve a seat now to make the most of it.