This question is more of an attempt to gather opinions. I have automated multiple mobile applications that existed as native apps on both iOS and Android. In these scenarios, my go-to pattern has always been to create separate projects for both, rather than attempt to combine the iOS automation and Android automation into one project. In all cases I have used Appium in C# for the test framework implementation. I have tried to search the web and various books (there aren't many regarding the automation of mobile devices) to gain a greater understanding of the preferred methodology to no avail.
This has been a topic of conversation amongst my current company's QA team and so I'd hoped to open the question to the larger QA community and get feedback.
I was hoping for anyone to chime with their own experiences (language doesn't matter in this case) with automating native applications. Did you opt for one project to handle both native applications, or two? In either case, did you find it easy or easier to manage the test automation repositories with one versus the other? What issues arose that you felt it might have been easier to handle had you opted for another route?
Thank you for any input you can provide.