In the course of conducting research to explore the intersection of open source innovation and the digital transformation of industries, it’s always exciting to witness major shifts. Today, the mobile sector is on the cusp of a pivotal transformation—one that's been many years in the making. 

For more than a decade, mobile application development has faced structural barriers. App developers face tight constraints: fragmentation, costly development pipelines, and limited flexibility. But that’s changing. Today, I’m more optimistic than ever about what’s emerging now: a growing ecosystem of devices, backed by open source communities, to simplify, streamline, and reignite innovation in mobile that comes at a critical time.

A new LF Research report, Expanding the Vision for the Mobile Industry, based on interviews with 23 subject matter experts across 10 different countries, describes important progress in the mobile application development space. The research reveals an exciting future for mobile app development in a world where a new suite of operating systems is taking hold, mobile devices are expanding, and so too, are development practices. Improving how we develop for different types of environments is truly an idea whose time has come. Here’s what the report reveals:

Why the mobile landscape needs a rethink

The mobile landscape has fundamentally changed. With the emergence of new operating systems like Fire from Amazon and Horizon from Meta, and other forks of Android, power billions of devices around the world. 

For developers, tapping into that opportunity isn’t simple. Supporting new devices and new platforms often means duplicating code and rebuilding service integrations over and over again, with valuable developer time consumed.

Cross-platform development: Costs, benefits, and opportunities

Building separate native apps for iOS, Android, and emerging platforms requires distinct codebases, specialized teams, and increased testing, all of which slow time to market and inflate costs. Cross-platform development frameworks offer a compelling alternative. By enabling code reuse across environments, they allow teams to build once and deploy everywhere—without sacrificing performance or user experience.

The benefits are significant: organizations that adopt cross-platform tools report more than a 30% gain in productivity. Teams experience faster onboarding, accelerated release cycles, fewer bugs, and dramatically reduced development costs. Developers can focus on features and innovation rather than duplicating effort, freeing resources and shortening feedback loops. With an 80/20 model—80% shared code, 20% native customization—cross-platform is no longer a compromise, but a smart strategic choice.

Current cross-platform dynamics: Tools, users, and gaps

Three major cross-platform frameworks dominate the current landscape: React Native (launched by Meta in 2015), Flutter (from Google in 2017), and Kotlin Multiplatform (JetBrains, 2017). These tools have matured rapidly and now underpin the mobile strategies of some of the world’s largest companies. Industry leaders including Google, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, Alibaba, BMW, Shopify, and Tencent use cross-platform frameworks to ship faster and scale more efficiently.

Despite their momentum, today’s frameworks are not without limitations. Most are optimized for Android with Google Mobile Services (GMS) and iOS. Support for emerging platforms is minimal, and alternatives to platform-default services—such as custom browsers, app stores, or payment systems—often lack the deep integration needed for wide adoption. This creates friction for companies looking to build differentiated products or reach users outside the dominant ecosystems. Innovation is stifled when competing services can’t access the same APIs or system privileges as defaults.

The role of open source

One of the most promising aspects of this transformation is that every major cross-platform framework is open source. This is no accident. Open source has long fostered collaboration, transparency, and continuous improvement in all facets of application development. Global communities actively contribute plug-ins, libraries, integrations, and patches to expand capabilities and close functionality gaps. When developers encounter a limitation, they can propose fixes, share workarounds, and collectively evolve the toolset.

This open innovation model continues to accelerate progress across the mobile landscape. In particular, it lowers the barrier to entry for smaller teams and startups while giving enterprises greater flexibility and confidence in code quality. Importantly, open source also plays a critical role in platform neutrality: it helps level the playing field for organizations that want to build on their own terms, outside the constraints of proprietary defaults.

Looking Ahead

As mobile platforms proliferate, the case for cross-platform, open source development becomes stronger. The Open Mobile Hub (OMH), a promising initiative we're proud to host at the Linux Foundation, represents more than just new tools—it's a fundamental rethinking of developing for mobile's underlying architectures. The opportunities for greater innovation in the core services that consumers expect with their mobile hardware - navigation, payments, authentication, and so on - are today within reach.

While gaps remain, the momentum to chart a new path forward is clear. Open source project communities like OMH are stepping up to address technical limitations, while enterprises are aligning around tools that prioritize speed, scale, and interoperability. The result is a more inclusive, cost-effective, and innovation-friendly future for mobile application development.

Read the report to learn more about the opportunities to get involved in the open source communities driving the future of mobile application development, and why the timing couldn't be better!

Thanks to Chase Rudin for his work on an earlier version of this post.