Google Now is arguably the single best feature found in Android Jelly Bean, and soon, it seems, it may be coming to iOS, Windows 8 and Chromebooks everywhere.

Google Now brings you search results before you even go looking for them. Just swipe up, inside of Google’s search app (or from any home screen on a Nexus 4, 7 or 10), and Google Now activates. From there, the Google search app delivers today’s weather, your Google Calendar appointments, directions to home or work (depending on what time of day it is), a heads up to nearby events, the score from your favorite sports team’s latest game, boarding passes, package tracking, dinner reservations and a lot more.

via ‘Google Now’ Reportedly Coming to iOS, Chrome OS, Windows 8 | Gadget Lab | Wired.com.

Justin Ferrell, mobile strategist and developer at Digital Relativity, explains the fundamental differences between the user expectations of today’s most popular mobile platforms, and illustrates how developers can build cross-platform applications without neglecting the user experience

The words “cross-platform development” have a somewhat negative connotation within the mobile development community. When we think cross-platform, we immediately think of compromising designs and user experiences, with poor performance that caters to the lowest common denominator of device. There are so many people doing cross-platform development badly that we’ve started to assume that all cross-platform development is bad.

Like all things, there are bad examples of cross-platform development and design. But there are also some very good examples of applications that use cross-platform technologies and techniques.

Companies like Xamarin offer great cross-platform development products

Before we can understand going across platforms, it’s important that we understand the platforms themselves, the fundamental differences and what sort of experience they create for the end user.

READ MORE >> Dos and don’ts of cross-platform mobile design