Technological advancements are increasing innovation rapidly. New tech start-ups are constantly popping up to meet consumer demands that come with an app idea. This is especially relevant for the smartphone app market as more and more people rely on mobile devices in everyday life.
Significant amounts of money are poured into mobile development on a regular basis, for a variety of different industries operating through apps, all competing to be recognized as one of the best mobile app companies.
It’s safe to say businesses understand the importance of providing this communication channel to connect with their customers. However, what may not be so easy is understanding how to develop the app without running into a variety of software development challenges that may arise, especially in android app development. These challenges include staying updated with Android development trends, creating intuitive UX designs, dealing with device fragmentation, and integrating third-party APIs.
Keep reading as we discuss the main mobile app challenges that occur during the mobile app development stage.
What are the challenges in developing mobile applications?
There is a large range of different mobile application challenges that an app developer will face throughout the development lifecycle. This ranges from choosing the best approach to developing the app, to creating an app that is good enough to stand out in the competitive market.
So what are the main challenges of mobile app development? Let’s look at the key mobile problem list.
Choosing the Best Development Approach
When starting app development projects, the first matter to consider is choosing the best app development technology approach.
The real challenges in mobile app development are making sure you decide on the right decisions in the early stages so that you create the best possible app for your customers. So let’s take a look at some of the development approaches you can take to overcome your mobile app challenges.
Native app development
The first approach is known as native app development. This type is where you develop an app using right tools specific to a certain mobile operating system (OS). The android app development process involves challenges and complexities such as integrating third-party APIs, ensuring compatibility across different Android versions and devices, and maintaining user engagement while implementing futuristic features under tight deadlines. The native approach comes with a range of advantages.
One of these is the fact that native apps often perform much better than other types of app development and are often extremely reliable and safe, helping meet any mobile development trend.
However, If you use the native approach, and decide to put your app in an Android mobile app market, you will have to develop it all over again if you would like your app to be shown in another marketplace.
Cross-platform app development
The second approach is called cross-platform development. Just like the name suggests, this development type is perfect for those who are looking to put their apps on a range of different app marketplaces. Developing Android apps comes with its own set of challenges, including security issues, app visibility, device fragmentation, and integration of third-party APIs.
Although it sounds good on paper, there are numerous issues with cross-platform development. Firstly, there is a huge dependency on the type of framework that is used to develop the app. As you will have to do all the work on these development platforms that have a distinct lack of features, you need to ensure it will have everything you will ever need for the app you are developing.
There are simply many more features that can be worked on and at much faster speed in native development than in cross-platform. Because of this, teams working on the app development will often need to work on cross-platform, as well as iOS and Android native development, making the whole process much more costly and time consuming.
Hybrid app development
You can also go for hybrid mobile development. This way, apps are developed using standard forms of coding, like Javascript and CSS that have higher performance than cross-platform apps.
Hybrid applications consist where elements from native apps and web applications are combined. They are web apps that have been placed inside a native app shell. This means that mobile app developers require only one source of code for the app and it will still be usable on multiple platforms. However, the unfortunate drawback is that a lot of native UX is sacrificed as a result, along with all the great features in native development that hybrid apps just can’t replicate.
Choosing the right development approach is one of the crucial decisions in creating mobile products. Be mindful in researching these different types and decide which one is better for you, based on your needs and goals.
Ensuring great User Experience
When developing an app, designing a user interface that provides a great user experience without faults is one of the most important processes and one of the crucial application development challenges faced by UX designers and programmers. This can often be difficult, as it needs to meet the best usability practices or it simply won’t be used as much as competing apps having better user experience.
Great user experience is one of the biggest mobile app design challenges when making an app. Ease of use, and loading times are just some of the factors that are imperative in users’ eyes for them to carry on using them otherwise they may go for another mobile product.
Device compatibility and screen size
One of the key factors in mobile UX design is ensuring the app works well on a range of different mobile devices. If it is not compatible with certain popular devices and the screen size is not catered to this could make the user experience much worse.
This is often one of the toughest challenges faced while testing mobile applications as there are many different devices and screen sizes, so ensuring the app is compatible with all of them can be difficult.
Although it is important to develop apps with accessibility as a main focus, there are no special requirements that need to be met. WCAG, which is the most reliable Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, suggest that both mobile and desktop apps should all follow all their requirements in the same way.
Developers will need to constantly monitor the WCAG guidelines to ensure that they are meeting their requirements at every stage of the process.
Different mobile operating systems
There are many iOS, Android, and Windows app development challenges that developers face when trying to provide the top-notch user experience. Specifically, the Android OSpresents unique challenges such as fragmentation, security vulnerabilities, and the need for compatibility with various device configurations and versions. Developers have to ensure that the app is working well on every operating system to ensure a high-quality user experience.
Finance management and funding
After you have decided on developing a mobile application, you next need to think about the costs, and how you will be able to afford it. Having a great idea for an app means nothing when you don’t have the funds to make it a reality.
The costs will vary depending on how complicated the app is. For example, apps often range from $3,000 to $150,000. You need to consider all of this before developing the app.
This is often one of the biggest problems in software development, as it can be difficult to figure out the costs involved, as well as getting the funding. You can get funding through a range of different ways. These ways include angel investors, loans, or joint ventures.
Standing out in the mobile apps market
Mobile apps are extremely popular, and as such, the mobile market is extremely competitive. One of the main challenges is app visibility in a crowded market. So how do you develop an app that stands out from the crowd?
One of the biggest mobile app development challenges is promoting the app. There are several ways to do this.
One of them is making it discoverable. If people can easily find it on an app marketplace, they are much more likely to download it. If you’ve created a high-performing app that has a great user experience but no one can find it, you won’t reach your business goals.
Make sure to look for a mobile app feature list example to find the best ways to promote the app.
