You have come up with a great app idea and now what? Obviously, a mere idea is nothing until and unless you shape it into a robust app product. Of course, there are several challenges such as budget constraints, your lack of previous experience with a mobile app project, the stiff competition in your niche and the uncertainty that any new creation needs to face.
In some countries where the app development scene is just taking shape gradually, ambitious newbie developers are already at the forefront in leading the development initiative. These developers are facing numerous challenges for beating the tough competition in their respective niches. For example, new developers involved in app development in Ireland increasingly prefer to follow the examples of app developers in India and Southeast Asia who have the proven expertise in dealing with the requirements of small business apps.
But how to go about these challenges and come out victorious with a superb app product that withstands the market competition? How to make things look easier for the app project by following the tried and tested principles? Well, here we are going to discuss some key considerations for newbie app developers. Let’s start.
Know your Market and Audience in Depth
The first and foremost priority will be knowing all the apps that you are going to compete with and the target audience who are going to use your app. You should have a clear idea about all the existing apps in the market, their shortcomings and the features and UX attributes that can be incorporated by your app to outshine them in competition.
Some of the key answers that an extensive market and audience research should answer include the following.
- What are the leading competitor apps?
- What strategy do they follow?
- What are the key strengths and shortcomings of their apps?
- What do the app users say about their apps on social media?
- What unique selling point do they offer?
- What are the demographic characteristics of your users?
- What are their most favourite app features?
- What user experience loopholes do they detest most?
Making a choice between Native, Cross Platform and Hybrid App
You can either build separate apps for iOS and Android (native development) or you can develop one hybrid app that works on all mobile platforms (hybrid development) and web or you can build highly platform specific apps while reusing maximum codebase across platforms (Cross platform development). Let’s explain the strengths of each of them.
Native app development offers the following advantages.
- Native apps thoroughly adheres to the platform specific guidelines and requirements pertaining to iOS or Android.
- Native apps offer far better app security measures specific to the particular platform.
- Native apps make use of the device features and operating system functions to the optimum level.
- Native apps easily receive over the air app updates.
Native app for separate platforms only add to the development cost and are comparatively more expensive than cross platform or hybrid development.
Hybrid app development offers the following advantages.
- Hybrid apps ensure by avoiding separate app development for two platforms help saving a lot of time and cost.
- Hybrid apps by relying on available web technologies like HTML, JavaScript and CSS involve a lower learning curve.
- Hybrid apps having full cloud support guarantee easy access anytime and anywhere.
The only negative aspect about hybrid apps is that they offer a typical “one size fits all” approach to app development and so the app performance and user experience suffer.
Cross platform app development provides the following advantages.
- Fast paced app development and lower development cost because of the optimum code reusability.
- By incorporating native UI layer it ensures native user experience and app performance.
- Cross-platform development ensures optimum consistency across diverse platforms.
Cross-platform development in spite of bringing the best of both native and hybrid development, still undermines the user experience of native apps.
Have a Solid grasp on different Monetization Options
An app only can perform like a business when it generates revenue through monetisation options. There are several ways you can expect your app to generate revenue. Here are the key monetisation options for an app project.
- Freemium: This model allows free downloads fir the basic app features and content and users need to pay to unlock the advanced features and content.
- Paid apps: Users need to buy the app from the app store or play store for using it.
- In-app purchase: As per this model, users can make purchases from the digital or actual products offered through the app.
- Subscriptions: Users can subscribe to the content and features of an app on a monthly or yearly basis.
- In-app ads: As per this model ads are accommodated within the app showcasing products and services from other brands.
- Sponsorships: An app with a robust user base can be partnered by different business brands and advertisers.
Since each of these monetisation models has its own advantages and disadvantages, an app needs to choose the one that fits its business model best.
Choosing the appropriate Technology Stack
Any app project after finalising the platform and development approach needs to choose the right technology stack that justifies the app project. The user experience depends highly upon the chosen technology stack comprising backend and frontend frameworks, database technologies and API tools.
Obviously, the choice of technology stack depends heavily upon the app types such as native, cross-platform or hybrid apps. If you want to build native iOS app you need resources experienced with coding in Objective C or Swift. For native Android development you need experience in coding in Kotlin or Java.
For hybrid app development, expertise with tried and tested web technologies such as HTML, Java, CSS and leading mobile UI wrapper frameworks such as PhoneGap is required. For cross platform app development, React Native and Flutter are the most credible options.
Give focus on app Testing
In the end, it should be your priority to ensure that the app works just fine without any performance glitches across all devices and delivers the user experience as per the intended app objective. To ensure this, you need to have a rigorous testing plan for the app project.
For the app testing you can use both simulators and actual mobile devices. Though actual devices will give a more detailed idea about the app’s performance, when targeting a variety of device types, simulators can make things easier and can save a lot of time.
Conclusion
Apart from considering all the attributes that we have mentioned above, for any new app project it is extremely important now to embrace an incremental development approach such as Minimum Viable Product (MVP). By building the app with basic features and planning value additions over time, you can control initial development cost while incorporating audience validated insights into development.