4 Things Mobile App Developers Forget About

Given the boom of mobile users from around the world it is safe to say that mobile devices have become the most powerful marketing and advertising tool today.

There are still some businesses that haven’t adopted the mobile-first approach for their marketing strategy, but the growth towards it is phenomenal.

There was also once a time when mobile apps were considered a reserve for large businesses and corporations, but that has changed over the past four, five years. In fact, smaller companies are now able to serve their clients a lot better and get even greater returns on their investment ever since mobile apps took off.

Some of the best benefits of owning a mobile app include:

• Increased visibility at all times
• Increased customer engagement
• Promote products more directly
• Provide faster services
• Offer personalized content
• Instant online and offline access
• Increased SEO Potential
• Increased customer loyalty

As you can see, businesses can ride a high horse with mobile apps, but sometimes that horse can be a little to high for their own good. To be frank, mobile app developers could end up overlooking a couple of minor or highly important details that can makes an app ‘complete.’

In order to help them get the best of both their final product and their boss, let us look into the number of things that developers tend to forget when making mobile apps.

1. Apps Do Not Integrate With Websites Automatically

Many businesses can enhance the overall experience of their website when it is optimized for mobile devices. That is why it is crucial for mobile app developers to understand how their database and server-side code should be written.

Various methods of development such as php sites and Classic ASP.NET, have a tight coupling between their server-side and client-side code. What this means is that it can be quite hard or even virtually impossible to decouple the server-side code into a usable API for your app.

This is exactly what you need to keep in mind to ensure that your app integrates with your app completely.

2. Thousands of Devices Run Apps
   

Even though Android apps can run any smartphone device, every one of those devices run on different operating systems and have varying specifications. This means that developers will be busy trying to address a particular issue from one of thousands or millions of other smartphone devices.

The only out from this dilemma would involve developers having to test their apps on a variety of devices, platforms as well as OS versions. Of course, this also means that developers are going to have to be prepare address potential bugs from customers who got their hands on the affected version of the app.

3. Apps Have Too Many Requirements

Source:

When comparing browsers with apps, you will find how different these two are when it comes to getting reviewed before getting cleared to become available to the public. Browsers are normally open-ended, but apps, on the other hand, need to uphold strict security protocols. You can check more about ensuring the proper app flow on this link.

Apple is one that can take up to two weeks to review each deployed app (which includes both initial release and updates). As a matter of fact, they perform a meticulous review of an in-app product and could reject it if you do not meet their requirements precisely. Some of these requirements include full descriptions of your app that include legal clauses, having various images for every image supported as well as include numerous external support web pages.

Even after an app gets published upon being reviewed by Apple, developer(s) may have to alter their store listing in response to it. But this isn’t really a big thing to worry about as long as you track of your progress as well as Apple’s feedback and this way, you won’t have to wait in long queues as well.

4. Apps Need Plenty of Testing

Source:

Apps require far more testing than websites based on the number of phone/OS combinations out there. Usually when a website encounters an issue, you just need to fix the code, give out an update and you’re good to go. With apps however, there are times when you can’t force users to upgrade their apps. More specifically, it means that when you publish a few versions of your app, you will be have a fractured customer base.

To fix this, you have to start versioning your APIs, which means you will be hosting one of versions of your server-side code for each version of your app. Just to be on the safer side of things, it would be better for you to test every version of your app whenever your API is updated.

You may not believe it, but there are other businesses that are not aware of this problem’s existence or just do not factor the time and the complexities when it comes to updating in app development.

Author Bio: Laraib Shahzad is a content marketer who specializes inghost blogging, email marketing campaigns. She worked with iconic brands like AT&T and other top advertising agencies. She helped hundreds of business owners to define their ideal clients and create a marketing message that speaks directly to those clients.