Three important factors when developing your custom mobile app

You have an idea for an app that will elevate or even form the core of your business and now you’re wondering how to go about designing and building it. It’s not easy to pinpoint the blueprint for success in mobile app development though there are some important points you need to think about when you start planning your mobile app.

iOS or Android

Which platform is the right one for your app, or more urgent if you’re doing both? This might seem clear as day to you, but there are details to think about that could change your opinion.

If you’re an iOS user among a sea of iOS users, for example, you’re likely to immediately gravitate to Apple’s mobile platform because it’s familiar to you – and maybe seemingly more superior. But this is a false-consensus bias you need to overcome and think about your target audience and market as well as your monetization strategy.

If your target market is, say, South America, Android is the dominant platform in the region and you need to take that into consideration even if iOS might be more preferable for other reasons.

Then there is the monetization strategy. Though iOS apps are generally more profitable and easier to monetize, this is not always the case and you need to do your research on how you will monetize (e.g., paid app vs in-app sales) and which platform provides the best tools to help you achieve your goals. Only extensive research and exposure to both platforms will enable a clear, unbiased decision.

Cost

Monetization is important for recouping the cost of mobile app development, but the initial cost is a more immediate concern for your company.

Though mobile app development has become much more accessible in recent years, a cheaper app is still often a poorer app. To achieve solid results, you need to make an investment in a top-notch development team.

One of the first questions that should be asked is if you should even create a native mobile app, or is a web app (basically just a website optimized for mobile devices) enough? Or maybe a hybrid app that tries to offer the best of both worlds, is the best choice for your needs. An experienced development partner can help you make decisions like this, and if you do decide to proceed with your mobile app development with an experienced partner, they will also guide you through issues of monetization to recoup the cost of development. This is crucial as even a solid, high-performing app can fail if the monetization strategy fails.

Test for Success

With millions of apps and billions of app downloads across iOS and Android app stores, it’s a crowded marketplace and the difference between success and failure in mobile app development can be razor-thin. Once you have a plan in place, the building begins, and it is far from an exact science. A crucial component of the development is continual testing.

You need to understand where your app fails, learn from poor decisions, and keep improving to plug those holes. An app is never perfect the first time around, so it’s important that you continue to iterate and practice continual testing to have a better chance of achieving success.

Having a mobile app is a boon for your business and remembering these important factors will help make the process smoother, the product better, and the results will transform your business for the better. These are, of course, just three main points out of many, and the intricacies of mobile app development are best left to a team of experts who, together with you and your business team, plan, strategize, build, test, and launch a mobile app that has a chance of market success.