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Myths About Mobile App Development You Need To Know

by Mariya Parackal

 

Gartner’s prediction states that in 2017 over 268 billion app downloads will generate an income of $77 billion. The world has already shifted from desktops to mobiles and the mobile app development industry is progressing multi folds each passing day as customers are opting for mobiles for researching, browsing, or even purchasing groceries.

It’s the need of the hour to walk hand in hand with the increasing mobile demands of the customers to ensure yours at the top of the game. While most companies have already begun reaping the benefits of online presence and expanding the features or functionalities their apps can provide, some companies are still reluctant or biased about the whole idea.

Mobile app development can also be hindered by myths that need to be debunked in order to ensure the optimum utilization of mobile solutions. In this article, we look into the most common myths that are overlooked or go unnoticed while developing mobile apps.

Myth 1: Mobile App Development is Only About Writing Code

Most people are prejudiced about mobile app development and believe that it’s all about coding. Although you may have adequate knowledge about Android and iOS development, building an app from scratch with only an initial idea adhering to the graphics, functionality, design paying attention to user experience demands both experience and high proficiency.

To compete with the new techniques and hardware in the market, it’s necessary to have knowledge of the latest technology. Due to the diversity of the use cases, along with different tool-kits and development languages, the connectivity solutions need to vary for different back-end systems and data sources.

While cloud-based mobile application platforms simplify the effort of developers, the support provided for Multiple OS versions is crucial. Collaboration between stakeholders like business managers, developers,  in-house IT representatives, project managers, business managers, and others is necessary to ensure that the entire development process takes place smoothly. The stakeholders should converge to ensure broader mobile strategy and teamwork to ensure state of the art mobility solutions.

Myth 2:  App users are your customers

Post-installation within the first three days, the average Android app loses 77% of its daily active users and 90% within the first 30 days. It is only this 10% that stay with you after a month is potential customers. Although both users and customers may seem the same, the user could be anyone who interacts with the product, utilize your app to experiment, research or pursue a hobby and are not going to fetch you any money.

A user becomes a customer when they start paying to use your app. Customers are the target audience you’re trying to reach out to through your business investments, discounts, promotions or paid advertisements. The prime question that developers should answer is why people would want to download it instead of relying on user flow or user experience. A transition in thinking which focuses on developing products for customers instead of users will enable developers to refine their ideas to build highly efficient products.

Myth 3: The best user experience can be obtained from Native apps as opposed to HTML5 Apps

Native apps may always provide the best user experience, but there is no hard and fast rule that it needs to be the apt choice. Whether its hybrid or mobile web or native, each has its pros and cons. Tools like Xamarin not only aid in the cross-platform development and ensure equal standards as native app development.

Myth 4: Native app can substitute mobile website

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Although native apps are designed to achieve certain requirements efficiently, you would require a mobile website. While Native apps promise interaction with existing customers and permit them to access your business, Mobile websites highlight your business in various search engine ranking.

Myth 5: Prioritising on new installs can boom your business

Most people tend to forget the applications they have installed in their app due to bad user experience, lack of responsiveness, lack of engagement, etc. According to a recent study by Localytics, 22% of downloaded apps are only used once before being completely abandoned and forever forgotten.

So it’s necessary you remind the users of your app. Its advisable to nurture your existing app user than acquiring new users. Push notifications and email could help you remain in the limelight. At the end of the, if you just prioritize on new installs ignoring user engagement, it’s pointless.

Myth 6: “Mobility solutions will standardize and mature.”

The standards have been raised by companies like Kony and solutions like SAP’s SMP platform in the recent years. With the consistent emergence of new solutions, the mindset is that standardization will occur and the best solution will take on the market. But this may not be the case.

Along with Standards like HTML5 and OAuth, core applications like Oracle, Salesforce, and SAP are progressing simultaneously along with devices and solutions offered by mobility vendors. So an immortal growth can be anticipated with no ultimate mobility solution or app capturing the market completely.

Myth 7: Data Related Myth

Companies that have invested immensely in ERP and other systems may seem unsure to develop mobile apps that cannot plug-in flawlessly into these existing technologies. Accessing backend systems and APIs like MySQL, SAP, SharePoint, Oracle using mobile may seem hard. With enterprise-grade MBaaS (mobile backend as a service) solution, several issues can be resolved and enable mobile devices to easily access legacy systems.

“Back-end as a Service”, is also known as Providing more information about MBaas. This model allows developers the link their apps to backend cloud storage and APIs disclosed by back-end apps along with providing features like push notifications, user management, etc.

Myth 8: Enterprise Apps developing can be a Tedious and Time-consuming Process

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As per Kinvey.com, traditional methods and techniques of software development take approximately six months to launch a new application to the Mobile App Store. One can take advantage of Kinvey, Appery.io, bubble.is, QuickBase, etc. which are off the shelf tools that require no coding.

These days, Cross-platform app development has catalyzed the development process by enabling developers to develop mobile apps that can be used on multiple mobile platforms. The latest app development platform decreases the learning time by permitting the developer to utilize any familiar programming language.

Xamarin and similar platforms aid the development process by permitting them to code various parts of an app just once and allows them to reuse the code on different platforms. Ready to use cloud-based solutions like Nessus, SOASTA CloudTest etc for testing, hosting etc are aiding the developers across the world.

Myth 9: The more the features, the better the app

 When an app tries to be “everything for everyone”, it ends up being bloated, unresponsive, slow and faces memory hogs. Even if the graphics are top-notch and helpful, the users would seek better functions and usability. Another mistake is to consider mobile apps as a micro version of the enterprise website and stuff all possible features into it. Its necessary to distinguish between a benefit and a feature.

Another misconception is that business applications put huge loads on the back-end systems and devices as they have heavy data. The size of data transfer per application needs to be limited by developers. By 2017, an average 4G smartphone is said to consume 5,114 MB/month. Although top applications take a large amount of data from the back-end, only a minute percentage of it is transmitted to the handset.

Always ask these questions to yourselves or your team before stuffing any new feature to your app:

  • How will this feature benefit my customers?
  • How will this feature make things easier for the users?
  • How will this feature help to solve the user’s problems?

Myth 10: Enterprise mobility is a security nightmare

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Despite all kinds of encryption that technology facilitates us with, studies show that the confidential corporate data of one-third of enterprise companies have been compromised via stolen or lost devices. It may seem like a nightmare, but mobile device management protocols combined with authentication, encryption, and analytics provide vault-like data protection for stolen or lost devices.

Myth 11: A great app will sell itself

After spending time extensively on a unique idea and developing it into a full-grown product, you would want to check on the following:

a) Organic downloads: 

The aim is to convert organic downloads into customers. These downloads can be obtained by barely making any investment as it can be put on the play store, promoted, or shared on App forums, Social Media, or any digital space that’s accessed by the target segment. 

b) Inorganic downloads:

These are the downloads obtained from paid advertisements and may have lower ROI as opposed to organic downloads and is essential if you are targeting larger segments. It highlights your lead source and identifies lead channels that require more investment in terms of money and time. At the end of the day, app promotion should be of equal importance for app development.

Myth 12: Great Graphics yield Greater User Ratings

The state of the art graphics are necessary, but they don’t guarantee the success of an app or ensure download by a huge number of users. Given below are some of the attributes that need to be considered to enhance user’s satisfaction.

  • Easy to Use Navigation: Irrespective of the type of App, the users are often wooed by the app’s easy navigation sans any complex design. The UX and UI along with graphics of your mobile app play a significant role in the success of the app. One classic example would be that of the famous taxi application, UCAB, an app with simple navigation, attractive UX and UI, which provides its users the platform with the best technology to find the nearest taxi in the vicinity.
  • User Interface: Ensure the Mobile user interface design are tailor-made for those customers who don’t use desktop computers. Since desktop and mobile interfaces are different due to the small screen size and touchscreen controls of mobile, customize the UI design ensures consistency, usability, and readability.
  • User Experience: Enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty by ensuring the app is user-friendly.
Myth 13: B2C Apps yield more profit than B2B Apps

B2C may be massive and more competitive when compared to B2B, but the ROI of B2B Apps are much higher.

Myth 14: Relating the Physical Size of Mobile App with Development Time

Inter-relating the development cost and time with the physical size of the app and deciding that a single screen app will take minimum time to develop is fallacious. Despite the strategies and comprehensive blueprint, the entire development process is a time-consuming process.

Myth 15: A well-designed app will earn a 5-star rating in the App Marketplaces

Apart from designing, the look & feel, functionalities, marketing, support, proper testing, maintenance, etc. plays a crucial role in improving the ranking in the marketplace. Even the minute details need to be taken care of to ensure a 5-star rating.

Parting Thoughts

To survive in an extremely competitive mobile app market, mobile app companies and developers should consistently research and update themselves to develop competitive apps. The above myths are the most common mobile application development myths that impact mobile app development adversely. These myths and misconceptions need to be addressed early in your mobile strategy to prevent delays, errors and have more efficient apps. If you are a businessman and looking forward to having your own application, you can get in touch with us as we have hands-on experience in the mobile industry.

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