Beginner’s Guide To Mobile App Development

Increasing demand of ioT leads to increase in apps’ demand that creates ‘App-Gap’. To overcome the ‘App-Gap’, app development at rapid pace is necessary. In other words, the ‘App-Gap’ is a fresh career makeover opportunity for many people. Today, hundreds of people are considering the approach to come up with innovative mobile applications. Here is a comprehensive guide for beginners about how to develop an app from scratch to finish.

Points to know before start the development

• Make your goal clear

The first and foremost step is to make a goal clear, that means developers must have clear vision regarding type of app, the main purpose behind the app development, its demand and so on. Because setting a perfect goal is a fundamental component for long term success. Research study shows that there is a direct link between goal, performance and result.

• Start to Sketch

Now it’s time to do some paper work after completing an imaginary portion. Before starting to develop an app make its sketch ready that helps to understand an idea deeply. This sketch should represent the basic features, approximate layout and the structure of the app that helps to understand the basic concept about the app. This sketch can be used as a reference and also used to make the mission clear. Moreover, with this sketch beginners can take an advice of expert, if required.

• Understand the end users and its requirements

One more step needs to keep in mind before start to do programming is to understand the demand of target users. There are more than 1 million apps available for iOS and the Android platform, thus building something that hasn’t been done before is mostly impossible. But, it’s better to understand what people want more from the present apps and how to fulfill their requirements. This is the key point to build a successful app. Also, developers have to choose a proper platform to build an app such as iOS, Android, Windows, Blackberry etc.

Moreover, developers have to define a proper way to build an app. There are many ways to develop an app such as hand-coding, hire a freelancer or use a cross-platform app development tool.

Additionally, developers have to make a strategy for better marketing. And the last important point is monetizing of app. How to generate the money from the app? Either make the paid app or run the app for free and earn from the ads. But for the beginners, it would be better to run the app for free and earn from the ads.

Points to know while developing the app

• Design the App

Designing an app is becoming increasingly popular as it creates an instant impact on the user’s mind. Thus, in this phase, developers have to represent their ideas into a clearer picture with designing the database, UX wire-frames and UI.

While designing the database, developers have to sketch every track into diagram, for example, if users want to create an account in app, developer has to sketch its every track such as the username, user ID, the password, whether the user’s email is confirmed, when the account was created as well as every time the user has logged into the app. And if, planning is going to interact with a server (to create or login to your app) or an API (to get the information from Yahoo News), then it’s better to draw a sequence diagram.

Additionally, this is a time for developers to choose a right approach for app development and that totally depends on time and budget such as Native apps, Hybrid apps or Web app.

• Develop and test a prototype

To develop a prototype is one of the most rewarding steps because developers can transform their idea into tangible. Prototype helps to describe the app more effectively with some basic functionality. Moreover, the prototype is quite helpful to attract more buyers. The main aim of this prototype is to specify the app concept before it goes into the design process.

• Register as a developer

After completing the prototype, it is the time to do sign up for a developer account with the particular platform and download the SDKs (Software Development Kits). Different SDKs support different devices, thus, developers have to choose particular SDKs that resonate with the targeted platform and devices.

• Learning Languages

Every platform has its own programming languages and tools that are used to develop an app for a particular platform only. For instance, to develop a native mobile app on iOS platform, developers required to learn Objective-C, Swift and C# and for Android platform required to know Java.

• Test the App

After this step the app will be in a customer’s hand directly, that’s why this is a crucial step. Testing the app is like a result of the exam. This is the last chance for developers to modify the app and eliminate the bugs before to publish. In this phase develops can see how the app will be looking in-front of the users. There are many ready testing tools available in the market to test the app and make it bug free.

Points to know after app development

• Deploy the App

After testing the app successfully, now it’s time to submit the app for approval. The platform will test the app for any malicious code and also measure the utility of the app. If the app idea is unique and the app is bug free, it will be easy to get an approval to publish an app on the particular app store.

• Increase the App visibility

Once the app is published successfully on the app store, the developer needs to make it more visible. Now it’s time to do an app marketing. There are many ways by that developers can attract new users by providing a free trial version, give a proper advertise on possible advertising platform, target the right users, and give the proper description and title to app.

• Release the upgrade on time

As we know, there are millions of apps available in the app stores. Thus, to sustain the app popularity and give a strength against its competitors, it is necessary to upgrade the app on time with improvements and new features.

• Alternate solution for app development

Which platform would be more preferable for app development? – This is one of the most confusing questions running in every beginner’s mind. Because in the initial stage, as a developer, it would be hard to learn more programming languages for different operating system such as for iOS – Objective – C, C# Swift and for Android – Java. Few techno-geeks find its better solution to develop an app for more than one platform without learning multiple languages and the solution is Cross-platform app development tools. There are 1000+ cross-platform tools available in the market such as Configure.IT. These platforms are helped to develop an app for more than one platform without writing a single line of code from scratch to finish.

Above factors give a basic and necessary guidance for app development. But, new technologies are coming in the market on daily basis, therefore, you have to make yourself updated with new app development trends.