9 mobile app development myths that are stopping the growth of your business
Day by day, the mobile app development industry is growing by leaps and bounds, and today’s consumers are increasingly adopting mobile as their medium of choice for browsing, researching, and purchasing things.
Businesses of different industry are realizing that they need to be where their customers are and numerous companies are making mobile development a top priority to reach those consumers.
Cathal McGloin, a CEO of mobile development platform FeedHenry, said “Mobile, and, by extension, mobile development, has become a necessity for many organizations. He also added, “But companies continue to think in single apps rather than a long-term, comprehensive mobile strategy. One of the smartest, [most] efficient decisions businesses can make is to recognize the potential for additional mobile projects up front.”
All businesses who are looking forward to creating a long-term mobile strategy, need to define architectures and frameworks that effectively support app development. Yet there are some myths about mobile app development that need to be debunked.
It is because of such myths that some customers not aware of a few aspects, very often end up bearing a loss of profit loss due to not being able to fully exploit the opportunities offered by mobile app development.
Let’s have a look at the common myths related to mobile app development:
Myth 1 - Developing Enterprise Apps is a Tricky and Long Process
As you know, traditional methods and techniques of software development are time-consuming. As a rule of thumb, it takes approximately six months to bring a new application to the Mobile App Store, as per Kinvey.com’s infographic.
You can multiply this figure by the number of applications required for a business, and an application strategy becomes a non-starter even before it is devised. Though, many new and innovative methods like rapid app development and feature driven development have enabled robust app development and deployment, dismissing the common myth of a long drawn out app development process.
Feature driven development is an iterative method for app development and it is mainly aimed to serve work on a project based on object-oriented technology. This is a highly functionable method that deals with varied complexities.
Rapid app development is also known for delivering quick results and it is mainly aimed to give a development process with the assistance of development approaches. Undeniably, this method is able to increase the effectiveness of the entire development process. You can even use off-the-shelf tools like bubble.is, Appery.io, QuickBase, Kinvey etc. that require no coding.
The recent cross-platform development approach also helps decrease development time.Today, Cross-platform app development has eliminated this by allowing developers to develop mobile apps that can be used on multiple mobile platforms.
Recent app development platforms “with bringing your own toolkit approach” allow the developer to use any programming languages they know, thus decreasing the learning curve starkly. Platforms like Xamarin speed up development by allowing to code different parts of an app just once and reuse the code on different platforms. For hosting, testing, and other important tasks, ready-to-use cloud-based solutions like SOASTA CloudTest, Nessus, etc. have made life a lot simpler for the developer.
Myth 2 - The More Features, the Better
The most common error about mobile applications is considering them as a miniature version of the enterprise website. So you end up stuffing more and more features into it when the very concept of an app is to deliver a specific and focused functionality to a targeted set of users.
Mobile applications that try to “kill numerous birds with one shot” almost always,t as a rule, are slow, bloated, and memory hogs. Top-notch quality graphics are extremely helpful; however, enterprise users are looking for functionality and ease of use to get their job done.
A focus on usability (UX), simplicit,y and above all a clearly defined purpose are the most important things for success. Another related myth is that business applications shall be data-heavy, placing high loads on the devices and backend systems. But the truth is completely different. It is expected that an average 4G smartphone will use 5,114 MB per month in cellular data by 2017. Top mobile platforms are known for taking a huge amount of data from the backend; however, they transmit only a fraction of it to the handset. Developers need to limit the size of data transfer per application.
Myth 3 – Mobile App Development is Only About Writing Code
A lot of people believe that developing a successful mobile application is just about coding, but it requires more than that. It is a basic requirement to have knowledge about iOS and Android development, but fully designing an app starting with an initial idea, covering functionality design, graphics, and user experience -- requires high proficiency and experience.
It is essential to have knowledge of the latest technology, trends, and to adapt to new techniques and hardware. Every single use case differs, resulting in the need for different development languages, toolkits, and connectivity solutions for various backend systems and data sources.
In the mobile space, support across multiple OS versions also becomes critical. However, Cloud-based mobile application platforms have made developer’s life a lot easy.
An average development of any project comprises an average of 20 different stakeholders like project managers, developers, business managers, in-house IT representatives, top management representative and others. To bring stakeholders on the same page and to ensure that the whole development process takes place flawlessly, a high level of collaboration is required . Mobility is not only about developing apps, it requires a wider mobility strategy and concentrated effort to offer cutting edge mobility solutions.
Myth 4 - Once your App is Released on the App Store, It’s Done
As per the statista.com analysis, the total number of applications in the Apple App Store is 2 million as of June 2016, and 2.2 million on the Google Play store. But, do you know that many of these apps are never even downloaded? People are not aware of almost half of the applications that can be obtained from the Google Play Store and App Store.
However, this doesn’t mean that these applications are junk and not useful at all Simply stated, there is high likeliness that these applications go undiscovered by potential users.
Therefore, it is a must for businesses to go with mobile app marketing along with the development effort. Indeed, development is not enough and marketing an app plays an important role to make it successful. After launching your app, you can even get better insights, such as how users are interacting with your application’s features.
Moreover, you can analyze screen flows and how users move through conversion funnels to know where to improve your app. For example, you can know that are there any UI or UX changes that you need to make based on the user behavior.
Myth 5 – DataRelated Myths
There are lots of enterprises, especially those that have made big investments in enterprise resource planning (ERP) and other systems, that are uncertain to develop mobile apps which cannot plug-in flawlessly into these existing technologies.
Using mobile, accessing backend systems and APIs like Sharepoint, MySQL, Oracle and SAP cannot be accessible easily. With the advent of enterprise-grade MBaaS (mobile backend as a service) solution, API infrastructure resolves numerous issues and allows mobile devices to access legacy systems easily.
Providing more information about MBaas, it is also known as “backend as a service. It is model for delivering mobile app developers with a way to link their apps to backend cloud storage and APIs exposed by back end apps while delivering features like user management, push notifications and more. Relatively, it is a recent development in cloud computing, with various BaaS startups dating from 2011 or later.
Myth 6 – Applications with Great Graphics Get Highest User Ratings
It is a fact that high-quality graphics are important for the success of mobile applications, but that doesn’t guarantee an application will be successful and millions of users will download it.
There are lots of other things that contribute to an app’s success and bring highest user rating, including User experience (UX), simplicity, and clear functionality. You should also make sure that your app defines its purpose clearly, otherwise, your users may be confused and uninstall it.
User Experience: It is one of the best processes for improving customer satisfaction and loyalty by boosting the usability and ease of use.
User Interface: Mobile user interface design needs are completely different from the needs for desktop computers. The small screen size and touch screen controls develop special considerations in UI design to make sure usability, consistency and readability.
Easy to Use Navigation: No matter whether you are designing an eCommerce mobile app or any other type of application, users are in love with apps that provide easy navigation. They prefer those apps that are easy-to-use without any complex design and navigation.
So, along with the graphics of your mobile app, UX and UI are also playing an important role in making your app successful. Let’s take one example of Ucab that it is a taxi application that allows users to get a platform of using the highest technology to get the nearest taxi within your location. The application has amazing graphics along with simple navigation, attractive UI and UX.
Myth 7 – Marketing Means All About Spending Money
Well, it is true that paying for a marketing is the simple route to take; however, not necessarily the most effective one. Growth and success come from developing a high-end and feature-rich application and relishing your first set of customers.
Today, all the successful applications become popular by word of mouth. People are fond of all those products or apps that stand out from rest. Paid marketing may only get you download numbers, but not user retention, so ensure that you market your app in a right way.
Apart from paid marketing, you can go with free mobile app marketing like Facebook marketing, promoted tweets, boost positive reviews & ratings, email marketing, optimizing your app for app stores, etc are some of the mobile app marketing tips that you can consider.
The bar for standing out from other apps is quite high that is why it is important for mobile app developers and entrepreneurs to have a right mobile app marketing strategy to market their application.
Myth 8 – Relating the Physical Size of Mobile App with Development Time
There are lots of people, who make the mistake of correlating the physical size of a mobile application with the development time and cost. They think that if the mobile application is small like one-screen apps, it will take the least time to develop and will be easy for developers. But it is not true.
All those applications that appear in the professional portfolio consume months to developing and hundreds of man hours. But a 3rd party plugin or support integration might be enough to consume days and weeks of development.
With the comprehensive blueprint and strategizing, the whole development process is a time taking task; however, technology professionals can help in save your huge amount of time.
Myth 9 – Developing for the Only iOS is Adequate
If you are developing native applications, you may have this question in your mind – which platform to opt for? Native applications don’t work on all the platforms. You will require separate applications for every single platform. So, what you prefer for – developing for every platform or you just focus on iOS platform.
For instance, if you are developing a consumer product for individuals, you might be right by targeting iOS platform as users install more apps and use them more reliably. But, if are selling a business application that will be used in groups, you should focus on Android platform as well.
So, these are the nine mobile application development myths that many people have in their mind. If you are a businessman and looking forward to having your own application, you can get in touch with a leading mobile app development company that has hands-on experience in the mobile industry.
