A cross-platform software development kit and related services supports the use of platform-generic mobile applications across a variety of mobile platforms. These generic applications may consist of and be developed in a purely content-based format, without requiring any binary files to be distributed alongside a generic content application. Such applications may access platform-specific resources of a mobile device using generic device resource request tags. A platform-specific native shell running on a mobile device accesses a generic content application and identifies device resource request. In response, the platform-specific native shell performs platform-specific functionality associated with the requested device resource.