subject: Major Factors Affecting Mobile Application Development [print this page] Mobile applications and designed and developed to address various business requirements. The strategies are created at various levels to address specific needs like maximizing return on investments, creating secured infrastructure, eliminating data loss and standardizing technology platforms.
First and foremost, if the OS on which the app has to be built, is an open First source then it not only makes the app development a lot easier but also attracts freelancing developers from all across the globe. Also an OS being open sourced like Android, implies that there will be plenty of free sources and tools available on the internet to assist app development. Not to mention the strong community (groups/forums) that will be there to help around.
The Software Development Kit (SDK) provided by the OS to the developers also goes a long way in deciding the ease with which apps could be designed on the respective OS. Every aspiring developer looks up to the OS owning company to provide regular updates to this SDK.
A very important, probably the most important, factor given the high competition that makes the 'time to market' so important is how early does a developer gets his hands on the OS code. For instance, OEMs (vendors) like Samsung being a member of the Open Handset Alliance gets access to the latest Android OS updates, as compared to a freelancer developer.
Most of the times, an app developed is as good as the SDK of the OS available unless the developer is part of an OEM like Samsung, in which case tweaks can be provided both at the hardware as well as at the framework level to make the app all the more useful and more importantly robust.
Developing a useful app is perhaps the job half done. The high influx of hardware of various shapes and sizes in the market makes it absolutely necessary that the apps developed are robust and compatible. For instance, the UI of the app has to be continuously updated based on the newest tablet/phone to hit the market. This calls for constant maintenance/updates from the developer. The job becomes even more taxing if the developer of the app intends his app to be functional on more than one platform.
The app developer must be clear about the community that he is targeting through the app. For instance, there is no point in making a great Rugby game app and launching it only in India.
The app developer must also be very conscious of the limitations of the app and must make all attempts to make them public while putting the app for download in the market, lest there could be trouble. Starting from what all phone's data the app will be accessing to the risk to maintaining watertight security measures whenever the app involves any kind of access to internet banking.
