Mobile App Development Blueprint for Dummies

Mobile App development is progressively becoming the largest and quickest revenue generators for small and start-up technology companies globally. Today, mobile devices have become the most essential and prized possession for the people. Some key points to be considered while developing a mobile app are listed below.

Brainstorm & Discover Your App

A good place to get ideas on phone apps is in social forums that target mobile users and developers. Many ideas, as well as complaints, are found in these forums. The complaints from users are great in terms of feedback as they will tell you what not to do with your app. Developers will also tell you what you should avoid when creating your app due to design complexity and programming tool restrictions. Most of these forums are free and you only need to register to participate in them.

Thorough Competitive Market Research

For any type of business, thorough market research is needed to tell you if the intended project venture is good or not. Competitive research is crucial to your success as a business because it arms you with the ability to quickly identify industry trends and adapt to competition or strategize to maintain a foothold or out-compete them entirely. The research posted on analysis website is mostly done by big corporations assuring the data found is valid and accurate.

Be Different from Your Competitor’s App

When you have performed thorough market research, it will tell you what the market wants, what is available on the market, and what you should do to penetrate the market.

If you sell any product like others in the market but is cheaper, you will penetrate the market and gain market share. Conversely, if you sell any product that has more user-demand features than your competitors, you will penetrate the market and gain market share. If the price is constant, product differentiation becomes paramount in market acceptance.

Choose the proper technology stack

The technology stack is a set of tools and frameworks used in software development. In other words, it is the combination of programming languages, frameworks, and tools used to develop mobile applications.

Benefits of choosing the right stack Choosing the right tech stack

• The base performance of your product or software will be solid.
• The developer will be able to code better and faster, and you will be able to retain the same developers for future projects.
• App codebase will be easy to maintain while choosing the wrong stacks leads to additional maintenance costs and technical debts.
• The stack will be well documented, and it will be easy to fix common bugs and/or performance issues.

Drawbacks of choosing the wrong stack

• A new stack will require additional time to adopt and the build time from the ground up is equally long.
• Some of the latest tech stacks have frequent update cycles that will require frequent changes to keep the app running with the latest codebase.
• You may face trouble finding experienced developers.
• The tech stack may become unsustainable.

On-boarding the right team with the right talent

Once you have confirmed the design and functionality of your mobile app but are not qualified to program it, you need to find programmers with extensive experience to create the features that you want for the mobile market.

India is a good source to get experienced programmers. App developers are very versatile, and they can provide the application development on any platform namely Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.

Building Your Apps for Different Types of Smart Phones/OS

Once the design of your app has been decided, you also need to know which smartphone OS platform you want to integrate your app into. The logical choice would be to select the largest market. That would be the Android, followed closely by iPhone.

If the app’s functionality is geared towards certain target groups like healthcare, law or financial services, or any generic audience, then Hybrid Apps should be the preferred choice. For any specific features and functionalities, you are left with no choice, but to proceed with native Android & iOS apps.

Get Your Legal Stuff Done to Protect Your Apps

Recently, with the spate of lawsuits and consumer complaints, legal protection and compliance are becoming important issues for mobile application development companies. The laws governing apps vary widely and are dependent upon the consumer base, nature of the content, and the business model utilized for developing the apps. It is advisable to consult a good lawyer and get the Patent, Intellectual Property Right (IPR), Trademarks, etc. registered.

Publishing Your Apps in Different Device Marketplaces

To publish your app, you must define which OS it was developed to integrate with. There are several app stores in the market. App stores are the platforms for mobile application distribution. Apple Store is the only one officially working for iOS; Google Play store and all other app stores are for Android or other mobile platforms. The app store means not only the placement of programs but also the organization of search, categorization, fencing, storage of reviews, and ratings.

Post-launch activity

• Collect user feedback
• Introduce additional features and improvements that are listed as secondary priorities
• Conduct surveys and analyse market reviews
• Develop and launch a promotional campaign to reach out to new customers
• Launch new app versions and keep your app up to date