subject: What Should You Consider With Mobile Application Development? [print this page] Businesses across the world have now understood the importance of mobile application development. Before the inception of smart phones, a lot of businesses competed against each other to be the first ones to get in touch with prospective clients over the Internet. Formerly, the web was accessed only through a laptop or a desktop. Over the years, technology has changed greatly. At the moment, the smart phones allow the users to access the web and use the gadget as a computer.
If there were a single brand of mobile phones, it would have been a lot simpler since people expect the monopoly to be broken with newer entrants in the field. Any industry is likely to be filled with different brands as competitors venture into the market. The same rule applies for the mobile application and smart phone market. There are various brands of smart phones today, including the iPhone, Blackberry, Windows Phone and Android based phones. While considering a mobile application developer, you must consider the platform and the operating system. The application would never materialize if your mobile application developer were incompatible with these two aspects.
With every passing day, the competition is getting tougher. There are thousands of mobile application developers on the Internet today and each of them claims to offer quality services. It is suggestive to hire a team that possesses an expertise with different operating systems. For an instance, if majority of your clients use an iPhone, then it is suggestive to develop iPhone-based application whereas if they use Android phones, then you must have a mobile application on Android OS. A wrong developer can turn out to be expensive, since you waste your time, money and resources on it. Therefore, you need to do some basic research on the expertise and the reliability of your mobile application developer.
Check for all the similar applications being offered in the market. Once you assess your competition, determine the extra services you need to offer with your mobile applications. Be careful that your application must not be a replica of something that already exists.
Different kinds of operating systems have different controls in the market today. For an instance, you can develop an Android mobile application and deploy it or put it on sale via different online stores. While selling an Android application, it is not necessary to sell it through Google stores only. On the other hand, you will not be able to sell the iPhone mobile phone applications directly. You will have to get the approval from the Apple team, before they deploy it in the Apple store. Obviously, you will be paid a commission if your application is sold or downloaded. As a rule, iPhone users can download the applications through an Apple store only.
Mobile Phone Platform
Generally, mobile application developers create projects that work only on one device. People only tend to choose the iPhone compatibility since the phone is extremely popular today and developers have budget constraints. Regardless of its popularity and performance, Apple reaches only 30% of the mobile phone market with the iPhone. In order to make the most out of your investment and to connect with the masses, you must consider other operating systems as well. For an instance, Android based phones are popular as well and have about 40% reach in the market.
While looking for mobile application developers, you must hire a team that uses platform-technology to design, develop, license as well as deploy the applications across all devices. In other words, you need cross-platform developers to minimize the development costs.
Internal Processes
The internal processes that manage the digital content on mobile apps must not change. The mobile application should have one point of integration, so that you can make multiple real-time updates on the website, databases, web services and more. Quite a few times, the apps are developed for internal purposes only and are not able to update the
content in real-time.
Content Management System
You must ensure that your mobile application has an easy-to-use content management system . Such a way, your employees, members of the staff or external agency members can use one interface to manage different mobile applications. The content management system should be dynamic in nature, which would allow the non-technical employees to add new pages, images, develop promotional pieces, change content or the entire navigation system. With an advanced content management system, mobile application developers will be able to make changes in real time.
Maintenance
Once your mobile application is built, you will have to maintain it. You will need a team that offers these services. If you have technical resources to maintain the application within the company, then that should be your first priority. Since this technology is more expensive and complicated, you will need an expert to update or maintain your mobile applications. While looking for a mobile application developer, you must ensure that he offers a maintenance program. For the most part, these programs deal with repairing unexpected bugs, adding or supporting new users and future proofing the application.
