A good website is essential for a business. The same website should work well on mobile too. The mobile site or application should facilitate your business. So, what is mobile app development and what is the role of the development team to look into the user needs and usability to provide a successful mobile application?
Well, a mobile application can be a native application built to work on a specific operating system such as Android or iOS, a web application to run on browsers or hybrid application which are a combination of both native and web applications.
There are many app categories and types. This mobile application can be in any genre such as games, business, education, lifestyle, entertainment, utility or travel. These varieties of mobile applications are available in the mobile app store for downloading, installing and using them for its purpose.
What Is Mobile App Development?
Mobile Application Development is the process involved in developing applications for mobile devices. These mobile applications can be installed on mobile phones or tablets. Mobile application developers have to know the device configurations, screen sizes, and hardware. Before the development process, the UI or user interface is an essential step.
The UI designer designs the application interface after a user interface testing and client needs and then it is passed on to the mobile application developer. The goal of both the mobile application UI designer and the developer is to create a user-friendly interface that solves the purpose. Both the front end and the back end rely on each other and work as a team.
The front end tools are the User interface (UI) and the User experience (UX). After the application development, it is tested for usability, authentication, reliability, responsiveness, and service before being finalized.
Types Of Mobile Applications
What is mobile application development? There are three types of mobile applications:
- Native Apps
Native mobile applications are those that are built for specific operating systems such as iOS, Android, Windows for different mobile types. A native app developed for a particular operating system does not work in other types. It is accessed with the app icon in the home screen of the mobile and uses all the mobile features such as GPS, compass, contact list, accelerometer, etc. It can work offline and uses the mobile device notification.
- Web Apps
Web mobile application is designed and developed to run on various web browsers used in various mobiles. They are real websites, which looks like a native app. It is written with HTML5, and one clicks the user navigated to a new URL and not on the same page.
Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish both the web and native app since they almost look the same. For example, users can simply swipe right to view next page just like the native apps.
- Hybrid Apps
The hybrid mobile applications a mixture of both the native and web applications that work on both a web platform and mobile platform. It is responsive and suits across all platforms with its multi-features. It resides in the app store and uses many device features.
The Technology Behind Mobile Development
The platforms available in mobile development are Android, Accelerator, MobileTogether, Appcelerator, Blackberry, Codename One, Corona SDK, GeneXus, IBM mobile first studio, Intel XDK, iOS SDK, Lazarus, LiveCode, LambdaNative, Macromedia Flashlite, Marmalade, Meme IDE, Monaca, Mendix, MonoTouch, Netbeans, Protogrid, Openplug, PhoneGap, Rubymotion, Smartface, Sencha touch, Telerik, Unity, ViziApps, Wakanda, V-Play Engine, Xojo and Xamarin. Debuggers and Emulator are available are few of these platforms and has to be checked before developing the mobile application.
The programming languages used in the development of mobile application are Java, HTML, CSS, C#, XPath, XQuery, C++, JavaScript, Visual Basic, Lua, Node Webkit backend, Swift, Object Pascal, Scheme, LiveCode, ActionScript, Memscript, XML, QML, Ruby, Scratch, Boo, .NET and Xojo. The mobile application developers have to master in few of these programming languages depending on the platform that they use for developing the application.
The integrated development environment available for this purpose is Microsoft Visual Studio, Titanium Studio, Proprietary IDE, Eclipse, Blackberry JDE, XCode, AppCode, Lazarus IDE, Qt Creator, RubyMine, Smartface IDE, Unity editor, Wakanda Studio, Xamarin Studio for Mac OS and Xojo IDE.
Mobile Application Development Cost And Time
The time and cost involved in developing mobile applications based on certain factors. The application functionality, mobile platforms, the devices it supports are taken into consideration first. Get free advice to mobile app development from https://vecro.tech/mobile-app-development/
If the mobile application fetches the data from a third party data provider or if it is available on the same platform is an important factor to increase the development cost.
Graphics and visual elements also add to the development cost. If the application involves the mobile hardware such as GPS, NFC technology, a motion co-processor, and other technologies, then the cost of that mobile application may be high.
The team size involved in developing the project and the requirement of technical support for application maintenance are other factors that affect the mobile application development costs.
The total time required to build a small mobile application is 300 hours, moderate apps are 400-600 hours, multifaceted apps are 600-900 hours and highly multifaceted apps are 900 apps.
Courses Available For Mastering Mobile Application Development
One can learn to develop and deploy the mobile application by taking up courses from top schools and colleges across locations.
Some of the popular courses include Android Application Development for Beginners, Professional Android App Development, Java and Android foundation, Introduction to Mobile Application Development, Java fundamentals for Android Development, Monetize Android Apps with Business Models and many more.
One can take up such courses if he/she is looking to learn the fundamentals and fine-tune the development skills and pursue the career in mobile development.
This is steadily growing in revenue and jobs are highly paid. Online freelancing careers are gaining popularity in mobile application development. It offers glittering career opportunities if you are interested in it.
EndNote
Be it a game, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, business or information mobile application, it is the role of the mobile developer to make it easy-to-use, fun and cater the needs of the end user. If you wish to get into a lucrative career, then do a fundamental course and pursue a successful profession. For all your mobile app development and custom software development, call Ecodelogic today.
Author: 9TP
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