Here’s Everything You Need to Know About Mobile App Development

• • Android App Development – With over 2 million apps in the Google Play Store, Android apps have a massive customer base and dominate the mobile app industry. Thus, Android app development is always the primary choice of developing mobile apps for any business.
  • iOS App Development – When security is the foremost concern of any business, they choose to develop iOS apps. Due to its great potential for business, iOS apps typically focus on enterprises, particularly targeting countries with better economies like the US.
  • Native App Development – Mobile apps created for a specific platform, either iOS or Android, is what native app development is all about. Businesses opt for experienced native app developers for better security, scalability, and faster overall app performance.
  • Cross-Platform App Development – As the name suggests, cross-platform app development simply means developing a single app that can run on Android and iOS. Many companies prefer developing cross-platform apps to save money, reusing the same code for both iOS and Android platforms when needed.
  • Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) – Progressive Web App (PWA) is a newer form of app development and is considered the future of app development. The technology combines the functions of both web apps and native mobile apps to develop Progressive Web Apps.

How to Build a Successful Mobile App? – 7 Crucial Steps Involved

Creating a successful mobile app involves a systematic approach. Knowing the essential steps involved in building a successful mobile app can keep you ahead of the competition. Here are the seven essential steps of mobile app development:

• Step 1: Market Research – You might have a great app idea, and you must be seeing the app’s success even before it’s developed, but all may go in vain if you neglect the market research during your mobile app development. Market research mainly includes knowing your target audience, studying your competitors, what’s working in the market, what’s not, and various other things. All these things will help you determine how to make your app better than the rest.
• Step 2: Define App Goals – Once you’re done with the research phase, it is now time to focus on the app’s goal. Understanding the goal of the app and its purpose is crucial if you want it to succeed. Various questions will help you understand it better, like what problems are this app solving? What are the essential features to include in this app? And so on.
• Step 3: Designing the App – Designing your app is another significant element responsible for making your app successful. Mobile apps built with good design automatically attract zillions of potential users. UX/UI design, advanced features, multi-touch gestures, and more are some main components of the designing phase.
• Step 4: Select the Right Approach – You must’ve sorted out everything related to your next mobile app development; however, yet selecting the right approach for developing a mobile app can be a daunting task. You can choose your approach based on your audiences, time, budget, and other aspects. There are three most broadly used types of applications: Native apps, Hybrid apps, and Progressive Web Apps.
• Step 5: Develop Your App – Once you are sure about your approach for developing an app, you should take a step forward and hire a professional app development company with expertise in developing amazing apps. Your app developer will put your app designs into coding and develop an app that will drive downloads.
• Step 6: Test Your App – You must’ve put everything in developing your dream app, but what if your users find glitches while using your app? That would leave a bad impression on them. Thus, before making it live for your potential users, you should test the app concept in numerous real-world scenarios to ensure that it functions properly.
• Step 7: Maintenance and Support – Your work is not done once your app is developed; your app will require timely upgrades, complete maintenance and support, and a lot of other considerable things. Thus, look for reliable app maintenance and support services to keep your mobile app updated and glitch-free.

Which Is Better: Native, Hybrid, or Web-Based Apps?

There are three main types of mobile apps available to explore mobile app development: native, hybrid, and web-based. All three approaches hold inherent value, but which one is the right approach for your mobile app development project? Let’s jump right in to know.

Native Approach

Native mobile apps are considered the most common type of app, built for specific platforms, and written in specific languages based on the platform. Objective-C and Swift are used for apps to develop on iOS; however, Java and Kotlin for Android apps. Both Apple and Google developers have their development tools, interface elements, and SDK.

Advantages of Native Apps:

• Better performance in comparison to other approaches.
• Interactive, intuitive, and run more smoothly.
• Superior user experience in comparison to the web or hybrid apps.
• Receive complete support from app stores and app marketplace.
• Allow developers to access the full feature set of selected OS.

Disadvantages of Native Apps:

• Use more difficult programming languages than others.
• Expenses are the most costly upfront for native apps.
• Not the right option for simple applications.

Hybrid Approach

Hybrid apps are a combination of a native app and a web app. They work across multiple platforms and behave almost like native apps. Hybrid apps are mainly built with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, or other programming languages and run in a web view. Hybrid app developmentt incorporates additional native features to make it more functional.

Advantages of Hybrid Apps:

• Unlike web apps, hybrid apps don’t need a web browser.
• Deliver a seamless user experience.
• Run-on a single codebase.
• Give access to a device’s internal APIs to store information offline.

Disadvantages of Hybrid Apps:

• Slower in performance compared to native apps.
• Dependency on a third-party platform to deploy the app’s wrapper.
• More customization demands for more money with hybrid apps.

Web-Based Approach

Web-based apps, also known as Progressive Web Apps (PWAs), are hybrids of regular web pages and native apps. Being an emerging trend in mobile app development, PWAs can leverage features similar to native apps like push notifications, device hardware accessibility, improved touch gestures, and more.

Advantages of Web Apps:

• Use a common code base across multiple mobile platforms.
• Less expensive compared to native apps.
• Unlike other approaches, web-based apps don’t require approval from the app market.
• No need to update apps from app stores.
• Easy maintenance.

Disadvantages of Web Apps:

• Carry fewer features and hardware compared to others.
• Complicate the user experience as it involves more steps to use.
• Poor discoverability if not marketed well.
• Slower and less responsive than native apps.
• Less interactive and intuitive compared to native apps.

How Much Does It Cost to Build an App?

With an ever-increasing demand for mobile apps, mobile app development shows no sign of stopping at all. Many businesses want to create mobile apps to engage with more customers but are concerned about the cost. Here, we have categorized the approx cost of mobile app development in regards to complexity:

Simple Apps

As the name suggests, simple apps don’t contain many complex features and are simple. They don’t require API integration, back-end, standard UI components, and others. Simple apps include features like email subscriptions, social media logins, calendars, and others.

Due to the absence of complex features, simple apps cost somewhere between $20,000 – $40,000 and take approximately 400 hours to get built.

Moderate Apps

Unlike simple apps, moderate apps do include more features but not as many as complex apps. These apps demand custom UI features, payment features, API integration, headsets and tablets adaptation, back-end server, and more.

Being moderate, these types of apps cost you somewhere between $40,000 – $80,000 and might take around 500-800 hours to develop.

Complex Apps

Do you know that the complex apps are tough ones to crack? They’re considered to be more time-consuming apps compared to others. These apps include multi-language support, third-party integrations, custom animations, complicated back-end, professional design, real-time features, and more.

Being more complex than others, these apps cost somewhere between $75,000 – $150,000 and might take around 800-1500 hours or more to complete.

Summing Up!

Developing a mobile app that attracts massive users is not a secret – all it takes is steady effort and consideration. A mobile app is built for users, so mobile app development should always be user-centric and not the other way round. We hope this in-depth guide of mobile app development was helpful. So, are you ready for your next great mobile app development?

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