Table of Contents
Table of content:
- Introduction
- What is Mobile App Development?
- Which Platform to choose: Android or iOS?
- Difference Between Web, Native and Hybrid App
- Things to be considered before developing an App.
- Stages of developing an App
1. Introduction
2021, is also known as today’s modern world is filled with technology everywhere. There were many technological changes that took place in the past decade. It is good to see the evolution that is happening right in front of our eyes. One of the major evolutions that we can talk about is Smartphones. Yes, they completely changed the way of living.
It starts in the morning with checking our mobile notifications and it is a never ending process. Similarly as there is an increase in the number of Mobile users, mobile application development has got its place on top in the business industry.
It is important for each and every micro, medium and small industries to have their own mobile app to get in touch with their customers easily and offer their services smartly. Irrespective of the job or industry you work in, mobile apps will always help you grow the business. Now, Mobile Application is no longer an option to the business but a necessity.
2. What is Mobile App Development?
As we all know due to enormous increase in the popularity of mobile phones or smartphones, Mobile application development has also become a more popular medium of software these days. There are various mobile apps that are useful from 4yo kids to 60yO adults. Mobile application is an essential element for all businesses and also reached around $600 million in 2020.
This mobile app development has been attracting customers from all over the world and leaving an impression saying there is no business without a personalized Mobile Application. The mobile application creation has its roots into traditional software development. They are even equipped with essentials like GPS, camera, NFC, censor and many more. At the same time it is also said that hardware varies from PC and laptop to Phone and Tablet so, the apps that are used in phones must be designed to show optimal performance.
Annual App downloads in Billions
3. Which Platform to choose: Android or iOS?
Developing a mobile app is a powerful way of growing your business. This will also help you in gaining customer loyalty , support and goodwill.
So Building an Mobile application starts with an idea or mostly a solution for an existing problem. Later shifting on to choosing the platform to launch your mobile application. Currently there are two popular platforms that gained customer best reviews, they are:
1. Android:
Android applications are made using softwares like Java, C++ and Kotlin along with the help of google tools like Android SDK, android Jetpack and Firebase.
Advantages of using Android Platform:
- Android not only runs on smartphones but also Tvs, refrigerators, car audio systems and many more. As the range of applications is huge, it opens to more business opportunities.
- Android Studio and SDK programs are available for all platforms including Windows, Linux and Mac- based.
- Development environment analyses the code and automatically generates some of its parts. They can be large often, but developers don’t need to print it all on their own; only the first couple of characters can be written on IDE will continue the rest.
- Android Studio development system is based on the world’s best environment – intelliJ IDEA. It has smart code analysis, auto code formatting, easy navigation and many more.
- Java programming language can not only be used to write for mobile applications, but also for web applications and games.
- In the code editor, you can see how standard elements are made and you can write your code based on the existing one.
- The number of Android users is more when compared to iOS users.
- Less development cost and easy hosting process.
Disadvantages of using Android Platform:
- Businesses that use Android development for their mobile apps deal with variable devices and versions which leads to spending more time for app testing by QA engineers.
- As it works with variable devices it becomes hard to create a product that perfectly fits each device.
- Developers need to know the parameters of each device which is really hard. They will be working with different devices like smartphones, refrigerators, tablets, radio tape etc.
- Takes longer time to develop on Android platform.
2. iOS:
iOS has a closed source code unlike Android.So this system operated exclusively on App devices. iOS apps are built in Objective-C or Swift language using tools like iOS SDK, Swift playgrounds and Xcode.
Advantages of iOS app development:
- We are all well aware about the fact that Apple devices make more in-app purchases unlike Android. This turns out to be a huge benefit for the business owners.
- As you are building on iOS , you are sure that it will be used only in Apple devices which is very easy to adjust between screen resolutions and parameters. So it consumes very less time when compared to Android.
- Every year Apple improves its application development guidelines and also explains how to replace the current ones with productive ones.
- It is a more engaging and easy to use platform.
Disadvantages of using iOS platform:
- Hosting an app is costly in the iOS app store when compared to play store.
- Can get rejected if your app is slow or poor content or safety problems.
- It will take more time to publish an app on the App store as it is done manually.
The top two rivals have been fighting for so long to acquire the Top 1 position. And in the meantime each of them got their own place and love from the users. So it is hard to disclose which one to choose.
It is estimated that by 2025, around 85% of the users will go for Android and only 12% are going to stick with iOS Apple stores. These apple users are also highly dense in Western Europe, Canada and USA. Most of the Asian places are Android Users.
Approach for mobile application development can be in four different ways. In which each has its own advantages and disadvantages. By choosing a way that matches your strategy makes you achieve the desired user experience and build native features for your requirements.
The three ways we will talk about are :
- Native Apps
- Mobile Web Apps
- Hybrid Apps
4. Difference Between Web, Native and Hybrid App
- Native Apps:
Native apps live on the gadget and are gotten to through symbols on the gadget home screen. Native apps are introduced through an application store (like Google Play or Apple’s App Store). They are grown explicitly for one platform, and can get full advantage of the gadget highlights — they can utilize the camera, the GPS, the accelerometer, the compass, the rundown of contacts, etc.
They can likewise incorporate signals (either standard operating-system gestures or new, app-defined gestures). What’s more, native apps can utilize the gadget’s notice framework and even work while offline.
- Mobile Web Apps:
Web apps are not genuine applications; they are truly websites that, from numerous points of view, closely resemble native applications, however are not carried out all things considered. They are controlled by a program and commonly written in HTML5. Clients first access them as they would get to any web page: they explore to a unique URL and afterward have the alternative of “introducing” them on their home screen by making a bookmark to that page.
Web apps turned out to be truly famous when HTML5 came around and individuals understood that they can get native-like usefulness in the program or browsers. Today, as an ever increasing number of destinations use HTML5, the qualification between web apps and normal web pages has gotten foggy.
Obviously, one can contend that numerous apps (native or otherwise) don’t take advantage of those additional highlights at any rate. Be that as it may, in the event that you truly need those nativehighlights, you’ll need to make a native app or, at any rate, a hybrid app.
- Hybrid Apps:
Hybrid apps are part native apps, part web apps. (Therefore, numerous individuals erroneously call them “web apps”). Like native apps, they live in an application store and can take the advantages of numerous gadget highlights accessible. Like web apps, they depend on HTML being delivered in a program, with the proviso that the program is inserted inside the application.
Frequently, organizations fabricate hybrid apps as coverings for a current web page; around there, they desire to get a presence in the application store, without burning through huge energy for developing an alternate application. Hybrid apps are additionally well known in light of the fact that they permit cross platform development and subsequently essentially lesser development costs: that is, similar HTML code parts can be reused on various mobile working frameworks. Devices, for example, PhoneGap and Sencha Touch permit individuals to plan and code across platforms, utilizing the force of HTML.
Summarizing about all these platforms, finally disclose that everyone has their own requirements and as per their and the company needs they have to choose the right option. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages which makes it more clumsy to announce which one is the best.
5. Things to be considered before developing an App.
- Idea Proofing
Before you begin to develop your application, you should verify your thoughts. Before you execute your thought right into it, find out if your application will be an answer for a current test.
On the off chance that your thought has effectively been carried out and formed into an application, it will be of no use to create an application of a comparable sort.
Most new designers will in general commit this error and they work day and night on their application just to discover that their valued thought has effectively been carried out previously.
- Know your audience.
To start an effective mobile application, it is fundamental that you have to know your crowd. Regardless of whether you have a progressive thought, it doesn’t mean it will be a triumph. On the vast majority of the occasions, engineers tragically center more around a particular task than on a particular crowd.
Yet, knowing your crowd is exceptionally significant. Know the gathering of individuals, who will be drawn to your thought and spotlight on promoting the application among your intended interest group.
Do your examination a long time before going through the cycle of improvement. When you think about your intended interest group, you can appropriately design the plans and functionalities.
- Plan
The plan of the application likewise assumes a significant part in its prosperity. The easier to understand your interface is, the more clients will be willing to download it.
When planning your application, remember that your content ought to be your essential concern. Eliminate any pointless components, which are of no use. The more diminished the interruptions are, the more spotlight will be put on your content.
Likewise, attempt to utilize a solitary information field. The more information fields you consolidate, the more the clients will be confused and it will prompt an awful client experience.
- Security
Security is of most extreme significance with regards to developing a mobile application. Individuals will in general keep a great deal of their significant data on their telephone. From area to passwords and ledger subtleties, cell phones hold a great deal of individual data.
In such a situation, information assurance is of most extreme worry for any client. On the off chance that you get your security conventions wrong, something drastic will turn out badly and you will watch your fantasy of an effective app crash not too far off.
So prior to developing an application, try to focus on the security of the application.
- Information base
Present-day cell phone clients rely fundamentally upon the mobile application to complete their assignments. In the event that your application glitches, odds are that clients will uninstall the application.
Having a fast information base is vital on the off chance that you plan to give your clients ideal execution.
There are a couple of components that you ought to consider prior to picking a data set. These incorporate information construction, speed, and versatility, the size of information to be put away, the openness of information, and the wellbeing and security of information.
- Accepting Payments.
In the event that you are developing a web-based business application, it is pivotal that you furnish the clients with an online installment entryway through which they can make installments for their application. Having an application incorporated installment framework will guarantee that clients can make installments effectively, take care of their bills, or book tickets directly right now.
Installment doors go inseparably with the deals created by your business. There are numerous banks and monetary organizations that give vendor administrations like online installment doors for web-based business proprietors. BBVA Compass Online Banking offers a wide range of monetary arrangements including trader administrations. You can visit their site to know more.
- Future proofing.
While giving an extraordinary client experience is a critical moment when it comes to developing an application, you ought to likewise give huge significance to future evidence of your application. An application ought to be with the end goal that it brings benefits for you even later on.
Aside from giving what your intended interest group needs, you ought to likewise take genuine endeavors in getting the future advancement of your application.
- Upheld Platforms
In the current day, there are two overwhelming platforms supporting the market, Android and iOS, so you can create an application that sudden spikes in demand for both of the platforms, yet to guarantee that your application arrives at the zenith of progress, it is totally significant that your application runs on both Operating Systems at the same time.
With the progression of innovation, it is feasible to create an application that suddenly spikes in demand for the two platforms. The cross-platform structure empowers you to dispatch the application in both Android and iOS.
- Figuring out how to code?
Presently with regards to application improvement, a wide larger part of individuals are not coders themselves. In such cases, there are a couple of courses that you can take. You can go for a direct technique and gain proficiency with the codes. To do as such, you can take up any seminar on the mobile turn of events, however, remember that coding like some other subject sets aside a lot of effort to dominate.
You can certainly figure out how to do the coding yourself, however, it will take a ton of time. To take care of business, you can enlist experts that you can trust and they will take care of your work a lot quicker and better.
6. Stages of developing an App
In 2021, the average revenue of Mobile Apps via App store and In-app advertising is around $693 billion. Many companies are trying to grab an advantage out of this feature, but there are few who don’t know how to create an app successfully. If you can build a precise app that can compete with the landscape of these growing projections, undoubtedly your company or business can stand on the top.
There are few steps that are to be followed regardless of the size and scope of your project. So let us have a look at all these points and understand them.
- Strategy.
The first step or the process begins with the strategy for any app development idea. One should have a proper strategy of Why and How they want the app to be built. The strategy may vary for each and every company but the point of creating strategy remains the same. In this phase you will also know about
- Market competition
- Know about the users
- Establishing app goals and needs
- Selecting the platform to launch your app.
It will take four to six months of time to build an app and can cost you around $150,000 to $200,000. Once you are clear with the strategy and the clear image of your app, you can successfully start the second phase.
- Analysis and Planning.
This is the platform where your app starts taking the shape and comes into the actual existence. In this phase the first step is analysing. Analysis of the cause of the app and detailed functional requirements. Now prepare a product roadmap from the requirements, then define the Minimum viable price and make that an initial launch based on time, resource or money as the basic concerns.
Secondly, planning includes deciding the platform to launch your app. If you wish to launch your app in the Play store you will need Android developers. Similarly if you wish to launch it in the App store you will need iOS developers. If you are launching on both the platforms, make sure you have both the platform developers to make the work done perfectly.
And also don’t forget to name your app. They are more similar to Domain names which should be unique and non repetitive. Check in all app stores to ensure the app name is not taken already.
- UI/UX design
The main motive behind an app’s design is to make it effortless and seamless for the users with a polished look.
The growth or success of the mobile app depends upon the fact that how well users are adopting its features and are getting benefited. The UI/UX designs create an amazing user experience which makes an app interactive, intuitive and user-friendly. Every app must have an intuitive user experience that makes users engaged.
- Information & Workflows
The initial step of your mobile application configuration measure is to decide the information your mobile application will show to the clients, the information it will gather, client collaborations with the completed item, and the client ventures inside the application.
For organizations, venture versatile arrangements have clients with various jobs and advantages, and it is vital to consolidate these standards as a feature of your application’s data engineering. Work process charts help recognize each conceivable association a client has with the application and the application’s route structure.
- Wireframes
Mobile application designers frequently start application plans with draws on paper. Wireframes are the advanced type of representations. Wireframes are reasonable designs, likewise alluded to as low-loyalty mockups—they give visual construction to your application’s utilitarian necessities.
With wireframes, the attention is more on aesthetic and client experience, not on color and styles. Making wireframes is a fast and financially savvy approach for planning application formats and emphasizing through them in the plan survey measure. While making wireframes you ought to think about gadget explicit plans. So whether your application is utilized on iPhone, iPad, or Android telephone and tablets; it gives instinctive and gadget explicit client encounters.
- Style Guide
Style guides are “living reports” where an application’s plan norms from your organization’s marking rules down to the route symbols, are archived.
Style guides include:
- Which Text style is used in your application?
- What will the shading plan be?
- How might your organization image be reflected in the application plan?
Style guides add to an application’s plan methodology. Building up a style control from the beginning as a feature of your mobile application advancement measure improves the efficiency of your mobile application designers. Simultaneously, following a style guide will help keep your application’s look and feel steady. As a feature of your application plan, one should consider application rules and guidelines from Apple for iOS applications and from Google for Android applications.
- Mockups
Mockups, or high-loyalty plans, are the last renderings of your application’s visual plan. Mockups are made by applying your style directly on to the application wireframes. As your application’s plan finishes, anticipate that further modifications should be its data engineering, work process, and style. Adobe Photoshop is the most mainstream instrument for making high-loyalty mockups.
- Prototype
While mockups show your mobileapplication’s usefulness utilizing static plans, these can transform into click-through prototypes with apparatuses like Invision and Figma. Prototypes are profoundly helpful for reenacting the client experience and the application’s work processes anticipated from the completed item. While prototype improvement can be tedious, the endeavors are definitely justified, as they offer beginning phase testing of your application’s plan and usefulness. Regularly, prototypes help distinguish alterations to the application’s proposed usefulness.
A few organizations incline toward doing prototypes at a wireframing platform, particularly when an application’s useful necessities are not thoroughly examined. Or then again, there is a need to audit the application’s proposed usefulness with a center gathering.
- Application Development
Planning stays an essential piece of this platform in the mobile application advancement measure. Prior to genuine turn of development/programming endeavors start, you should:
- characterize the specialized engineering,
- pick an innovation technology stack, and
- characterize the improvement achievements.
A regular Mobile application project consists of three basic parts:
- Back-end/worker innovation
- API(s) and
- The Mobile Application front-end.
- Back-End/Server Technology
This part incorporates information base and worker side articles fundamental for supporting elements of your Mobile application. In the event that you are utilizing a current back-end platform, changes might be required for supporting the ideal mobile usability.
- Programming interface
An Application Programming Interface (API) is a technique for correspondence between the application and a back-end worker/information base.
- Versatile App Front-End
The front-end is the native mobile application an end-client will utilize. By and large, mobile applications consist of intuitive client encounters that utilize an API and a back-end for overseeing information. Now and again, when an application needs to permit clients to work without web access, the application may use neighborhood information stockpiling.
You can use practically any web programming language and data sets for the back-end. For native mobile applications, you need to pick an innovation stack needed by every versatile OS platform. iOS applications can be created utilizing Objective-C or Swift programming language. Android applications are essentially constructed utilizing Java or Kotlin.
There is more than one programming language and innovation stack for building versatile applications — the key is picking an innovation stack that is most appropriate for your mobile application.
Mobile advances advance a lot quicker with new forms of versatile platforms. Besides, new cell phones are delivered like clockwork. With platforms and gadgets quickly changing, dexterity is fundamental for building mobile applications inside timetables and spending plans. On the off chance that chance to-advertise is a need, utilize a deft advancement approach. This methodology upholds successive programming discharges with finished usefulness. Characterizing improvement achievements as a feature of the dexterous advancement plan upholds developing your mobile application in cycle.
As every improvement achievement finishes, it is given to the application testing group for approval
- Testing
Performing careful quality confirmation (QA) testing during the mobile app development measure makes applications steady, usable, and secure. To guarantee thorough QA testing of your app, you first need to get ready experiments that address all parts of app testing.
Like how use cases drive the cycle of mobile app development, experiments drive mobile app testing. Experiments are for performing test steps, recording testing results for programming quality assessment, and following fixes for retesting. A best practice approach is including your QA group in the Analysis and Design stages. The knowledge of your app’s utilitarian prerequisites and goals will help produce exact experiments.
Your app ought to go through the accompanying testing strategies, to convey a quality mobility solution.
- User Experience Testing
A basic advance in mobile app testing is to guarantee that the last execution coordinates with the client experience made by the app configuration group. Visuals, work process, and intelligence of your app are what will give your end clients a direct impression of your app. Ensure that your app utilizes predictable text styles, style medicines, shading plan, cushioning between information, symbol plan, and route. Guaranteeing that your app matches the first plan rules will straightforwardly affect its client appropriation!
- Functional Testing
The precision of your mobile app’s usefulness is basic to its prosperity. It’s hard to anticipate each end client’s conduct and use situation.
The usefulness of your app ought to be tried by whatever number of clients to cover as numerous potential testing conditions as could be allowed. You may be astonished to get bugs when two unique clients test a similar component yet get fluctuated results. For instance, the two clients can round out a similar structure, however the two of them may enter distinctive information—which could prompt finding a deformity.
The motivation behind utilitarian testing is to guarantee that clients can utilize your app’s highlights and usefulness with no issues. It tends to be separated further into framework testing (the app filling in overall), and unit testing (singular elements of the app working accurately).
On the off chance that you are building an app for iOS and Android mobile stages, your useful testing ought to incorporate a component examination between the two renditions of your mobile app.
- Performance Testing
There are numerous quantitative standards to use for estimating the exhibition of your app.
- How well is your app reacting to what the client asks for?
- How quick are the app’s screens stacking?
- Is your app depleting the telephone battery or causing memory spills?
- Does your app influence network data transfer capacity proficiently?
- Is the size of your app greater than what it ought to be?
In any event, when your app passes fundamental execution measures, test the app, API, and backend for load by reproducing the most extreme number of simultaneous clients. Your app ought to have the option to deal with the heap and perform well in any event, when utilization spikes.
- Security Testing
Security is of most extreme worry for big business mobile apps. Any potential weakness can prompt a hack. Numerous organizations employ outside offices to perform careful security testing on their applications. Your QA and development groups can take a couple of basic measures to make your app go.
In the event that your app expects clients to sign in, these sign in meetings ought to be followed on the gadget and the backend. Client meetings ought to be ended by the framework when a client has stayed inactive for a significant time frame (ordinarily ten mins or less on a mobile app). On the off chance that your app stores client accreditations on the gadget to make it advantageous for them to re-login, at that point you should guarantee utilizing a confided in assistance. For instance, the development stage for iOS apps give the Keychain include that can be utilized for putting away a client’s record subtleties for a particular app.
Information section structures inside your mobile app ought to be tried to guarantee there is no information spillage.
- Device and Platform Testing
By and large, new mobile gadgets enter the market like clockwork with new equipment, firmware, and plan. Mobile working frameworks are refreshed like clockwork.
Various mobile gadget producers like Samsung, LG, HTC, Motorola utilize the Android stage, however they redo the stage for their mobile gadgets (since Android is open source). The gadgets come in various sizes and shapes.
Contrast that with Apple, which has a much more controlled climate, since they control both equipment and the OS. Notwithstanding, there are different iPhone and iPad (Apple iOS) gadgets out available.
This is the place where testing during the mobile app development measure varies fundamentally from web app testing. You can move away by testing your web app simply on the Chrome program in a Windows climate. In any case, your mobile app must be tried on various mobile gadgets or gadget test systems to guarantee smooth working of your app for all clients.
The intricacy of mobile app testing on every mobile gadget, continuous help expenses, and migraines of mobile gadget the board are essential reasons why organizations will in general form their venture mobile apps for a solitary mobile stage (and regularly give mobile gadgets to their clients). We would say, most organizations will in general foster their venture mobile app first with Apple’s iOS mobile stage; just where required they construct an app for the Android stage.
Testing is basic to an app’s future achievement; it includes a generous part of our general mobile app development measure. Having a complete mobile testing system is an unquestionable requirement for conveying a quality mobile app.
- Deployment and support.
Launching your native mobile app requires submission of your app to the app stores. Apple App Store in case of iOS and Google Play Store in case on Android. You should also have a developer account with both App and Play store before launching your app.
App store asks for the below metadata before an apps release:
– apps title
– description
– category
– keywords
– launch icons
– app store screenshots
After submitting to the App store it will undergo a review process, which may take a few days or weeks before making it available to the users. If your app follows all the rules and guidelines it will be reviewed as soon as possible.
In the case of Android, there is no review process included; the app will be available in the store within a few hours of submission.
How to hire a Mobile App development company?
- Global presence and size of the company.
- Portfolio
- Experience
- Ask their client reference
- Have a meeting with the representative of the company
- Communicate and let them know what you want.
- Team management
- Price and contract
- Quality maintenance and guarantee
Techweblabs – Mobile app developers in Hyderabad give life to your mobile app ideas. We will develop mobile apps based on client requirements with enthusiasm and zeal. The result will completely be the same as you thought of the mobile app. We are highly professional mobile application developers to give attractive UI/UX and error-free code. We have developed and deployed a number of mobile applications from Android to IOS in all the major business areas. Come and experience the unique range of mobile app development services in Techweblabs.