What to consider when developing a mobile app

The smartphone and tablet market is growing at a dizzying pace. The quality and variety of mobile devices that exist today offer excellent options to consumers. You don’t have to follow industry analysts at Forrester Research or Gartner to know that this growth explosion is real; just look at your own family. Chances are your children, nieces and nephews and maybe your parents and grandparents are using them.

Besides the fact that many people already own these devices, there are two other things that make them special: they contain a lot of personal information and they are always on.

With these advantages of mobile devices, it is not surprising that many companies have started developing software applications for them. In case you are thinking of taking advantage of smartphones and tablets and developing dedicated software, here are some things you can consider.

Developing apps in the 90s was easy. Microsoft had around 97% of the market share for its Windows operating system, so if you wanted to develop a software application for a large audience, you would choose Windows. Although Windows’ market share has declined over the years to around 88%, the introduction of rich Internet applications has made application development even easier as they run in all major web browsers on all platforms. platforms.

The mobile operating system market is much more fragmented, as yesterday’s figures from Canalys highlight: Android, Google’s mobile operating system is gaining traction and is available on many, if not most, smartphones. and non-Apple tablets, but in no way comparable to Microsoft’s dominant Windows leader in the desktop market. iOS, Apple’s operating system that runs on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch is second. In addition to Apple and Google, Blackberry OS also has a significant market share. Microsoft just introduced its new Windows Phone 7 operating system this October and Nokia introduced its MeeGo operating system which has been co-developed with Intel. Nokia has the largest market share in the overall cell phone market, so it can be assumed that they can play a significant role as well.

With so much diversity in the OS space, what is the OS you should be developing for? One aspect that can simplify the decision refers to the application market, that is, the Apple App Store, the Android market and Blackberry.

Apple undoubtedly has the most mature App Store, in terms of quantity and quality of applications. The App Store is the only marketplace where individual developers or companies can offer their software applications for the Apple platform. As a consequence, any user who wants to install an application for the iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch has to go to the App Store.

What do I understand by quality? Apple will not guarantee that you will like the app, but each app is tested to ensure that it is not harmful and that it will not be blocked before it is added to the market. This sounds great at first, but it already suggests one of the biggest differences between Apple and any other market: Apple strictly regulates its App Store. Suppose you are designing and implementing a custom software application for the iPhone. After hundreds of hours, you submit it to the app store only to find out after a couple of days that your application has been rejected for some reason. This decision process has been completely confusing. Recently, Apple published its guidelines for a successful presentation, which makes things more transparent.

Another thing that draws attention is the fact that most of the applications in this market are not free, but users must pay for them. So if you plan to charge for your software application and not use advertising as a revenue model, this may be the right place for you.

The Android market is completely different. First of all, there is no single Android market, there are multiple markets. The largest is offered by Google, but even Verizon and Amazon offer their own, which means that if you want to offer an app, you need to know which of the markets your users are most likely to visit. Apps on the Google marketplace are not regulated. Anything you develop will be available and most apps are offered for free. A good example is the game Angry Birds that has been downloaded millions of times: it is free for Android but users pay on the Apple platform. It’s not that there are no apps that cost money for Android, but they are in the minority and if a user buys one, they have a 24-hour trial period.

The Blackberry and Windows Phone 7 market is quite new and therefore does not have a large number of visitors. But since they don’t offer many apps, your software app may be more visible than in the Apple or Google market.

To make the right decision, I strongly recommend that you first focus on how you want to monetize your app (market vs. ad support, or a combination). Based on that, you can choose the operating system and market you want to program for.

In case you want to be able to offer your app on iPhone and Android or Android and Blackberry you don’t have to develop two separate apps: At IKaru our experience with Ttanium’s Appcelerator, which is a cross compiler for mobile apps, has been great. It allows you to create a native application for various platforms including desktop, writing html and javascript.

The mobile app space is certainly an exciting domain that is changing at a fast pace. To keep up with all the developments, I recommend that you follow the iOS, Android, Blackberry, and Windows Phone 7 developer blogs.

I plan to write more about mobile app development on land and abroad in the coming weeks. I would love for you to leave a comment if you have any suggestions or questions.