Microsoft announces Project Rome SDK for Android and iOS

Taking the cross-platform endeavors to the next level Microsoft has announced Project Rome SDK for Android and iOS. Project Rome lets developers write apps that are compatible with multiple platforms and allows them to switch between the devices.

Project Rome thrives by offering a logged-in user identity that is centralized in nature. With this feature in place users can login across multiple devices without having to worry about the cross-platform compatibility. Furthermore, Project Rome is also inclusive of features that are exposed via Microsoft Graph and other platform specific SDK’s.

Salient features of Project Rome

It is always tough to choose between the native SDK and the cross-platform one. Generally speaking, the REST API’s offered via Microsoft Graph is quicker to implement and come armed with some the advantage of Project Rome. However, the platform specific API’s do come with their own set of advantages.

• The platform SDKs provide an object model in the native language, local storage, and a publish-subscribe pattern to update the app when server-side information changes.
• If your app runs on Windows (UWP or Win32 apps), the platform SDK provides a number of additional features, such as using the users’ default account and automatically tracking user engagement.

If you plan to use other Project Rome features that are only available through the platform SDKs, you may wish to implement each of the features in the same way.

In other scenarios, it makes sense to use Microsoft Graph API’s and client SDK. For instance, MS Graph API can be used to publish notifications from app server side while the native-platform client SDK’s can be used to receive and manage notifications on client-side native apps. The Project Rome is an indigenous effort by Microsoft to enable superior cross-device and cross-platform experiences.

You can read more on Microsoft.com.