mobile app development

What makes mobile app development different?

Mobile apps are among the most powerful and sophisticated technology available to us on a daily basis. Today’s phones are portable supercomputers that connect us to the entire world and to our immediate environment through sophisticated sensors. Mobile applications provide unique opportunities to change the way users interact with the world around them, but these opportunities come with unique challenges.

UX and UI design for mobile apps needs to account for two major standards, iOS and Android, each with their own UI paradigms, customs, and habits. The designer must work with a small screen factor and limited room to display information, while accommodating varying screen sizes. The design must work well, be familiar to users on all phones, and be modern and polished.

More advanced phone features – location services, push notifications, camera and microphone – can provide the most value and innovation, but are often the most challenging to work with. Access to such features is often restricted due to well-founded concerns about user privacy, battery life, and app performance, and rules change often. We work within these restrictions to find best solutions and deliver innovative functionality.

Testing must be performed on a variety of devices, operating system versions, and network conditions to ensure the app performs well for the widest range of users. Global apps make use of localization and internationalization to translate interface elements and app store listings into the users’ native languages, and provide the best experience in important markets. App analytics inform the business about user behavior and app performance, detect problems and opportunities, and inform future development.

Apple App Store and Google Play Store review guidelines can be complex, and app approval is seen as the last step before launch. This process actually starts at the very beginning during the design phase, when review guidelines must be considered in order to avoid unpleasant surprises down the road.

Finally, mobile apps need ongoing maintenance after launch, whether to add new features or simply to keep up with regular platform changes introduced by new versions of iOS and Android. Regular app updates are an important signal to users that the app is constantly maintained and they can trust it will continue to perform to their expectations.

native or cross-platform?

All mobile projects face the same question: should we develop a native or a cross-platform app?

Cross-platform sounds like the obvious choice: develop the app only once, and it will run on many platforms: iOS, Android, maybe even desktop! Of course, it’s not always that simple.

Cross-platform has its limitations. More advanced features dealing with – for example – geolocation, background tasks, camera operations, may still need to be developed as native code on each platform. Advanced graphics and animations may be more difficult, slower, or not possible at all when using a cross-platform framework. And the promise of write-once, run anywhere can result in user interfaces that look great, but may not feel 100% native on either iOS or Android.

The answer then, as always, is “it depends”. Apps with relatively simple user interfaces and only limited use of more advanced phone features – for example an e-commerce app – are perfect candidates for cross-platform development. For apps that push the cutting edge of what is possible on a phone, the advantage of cross-platform becomes less obvious.

Our team can help you navigate this decision, and many others throughout your project. Reach out with any questions, we are always happy to chat!