Hey, I know the hubbub of such a discussion may be boring and repetitive for you. But truly speaking! The halt to this topic will turn out to be a fruit bearing.
You definitely know the significance of developing an application that represents your business in the competitive world. So now, have you thought of any concept for your application?
Ok! Let’s assume you have a million dollar app idea. How will you proceed further? Will you not do the required research on various aspects such as the user behaviour, the location, the budget on hand, etcetera, etcetera…
Well! You will certainly do.
My purpose of inviting you to join the forum is to give in-depth knowledge on how the development cycle initiates discussing the major elements.
Quick Highlights Of The Discussion
-
“The first thing to consider here is the audience of the product.” ~ Parag Agrawal, Co-Founder & COO, iProgrammer Solutions Private Limited.
-
“Based on the product itself, the budget and the time frame suggested by the client, our team of Project Managers, designers and developers suggest the best feasible solutions that are capable of providing maximum visibility on mobile screens and generating high revenue and profits.” ~ Vipin Jain, CEO, Konstant Infosolutions.
-
“Firstly, we see the length of the application. Secondly, we consider how many resources we need in the team, then comes the complexity of the project.” ~ Bhavesh Donga, Director & Co-Founder, Addon Solutions Pvt Ltd.
-
“The client’s target market is the most important factor to be taken into consideration.“~ Evan Johnson, Global Marketing Manager, RedMadRobot.
Our research team has put a lot of efforts in accumulating the information from the leading development companies by conducting effective client interviews. And, studying these, I thought to write this blog that ends up being a useful resource and not just vague answers to your questions.
Ready to get into the discussion?
Our first criteria: The Target Audience
It is the most significant factor to focus on while anticipating app development.
When you approach a company with your app idea, the first question the team raises is who are your users? Because the app the developers will develop for you will be used by your targeted audience.
Read the answers of various development companies below to get a clear idea…
“Usually, our customers decide which platform is perfect to develop an app because it is their business and we help them reach their goals. But we recommend identifying the target audience for the app first.” ~ Niketan Sharma, Business Development Manager, SigmaTech Infosolution.
“Which platform to choose, Native or Hybrid depends on the targeted audience. In few countries, iPhone is ruling, while in other places Android has an impact. Both Android and iOS are the most popular platforms.”~ Alexey Spas, CEO, *instinctools.
“The main parameter is Target Audience. Client needs to know what devices and what apps their audience is using mostly and invest into the development on this platform.”~Alexander Semenov, CEO, Heads & Hands.
Conclusion;
The app is basically for users. So, it’s the primary phenomenon to scrutinise your users’ steps. There are several elements you need to consider; their mobile using pattern, time spent on various apps, the age of users using apps, geolocation, etc…
Take an example of the Instagram app. This app has a huge global impact on Generation Y users. Because it is specifically designed for them. Before getting the app designed they had an accurate information of the age group who would be using this stupefying app. And, henceforth, they designed the app with exclusive and engaging features. The image editing feature is its USP. And, now the focus of the users has been shifted to Instagram Stories.
Though the concept was not new still, the app was able to bag millions of downloads in short span. Why? Because the team knew which audience to target and what new users are looking into the social media app.
Moving on to the second criteria: Choose the Right Platform (Native or Hybrid)
Before choosing the right platform, required time, app customization, app updates, user interaction, etc… are the segments that matter the most.
Let’s have a glance on what leading companies suggest their clients…
“Actually, the choice of the platform depends on numerous factors, and we make the final decision only after doing final specification. Hybrid applications require more time for development, stabilisation and support, although they realise prototypes faster. In general, the native platform takes less time for development, so we prefer this platform.” ~ Alexey Spas, CEO, *instinctools.
“Many times we get clients who come and tell us upfront to be the decision makers for which platform to go first. If you are developing a native application you can regularly get an update of new implementations but the same cannot be expected in Hybrid apps. For example, you have developed photo-id application supporting two side cameras in Android or iOS but in future, if you want a standalone camera that rotates with your phone, you can easily implement it in native but hard to implement in Hybrid. So we do depth analysis for the requirement and based on that we take the decision whether to start with native application development or hybrid application development.” ~ Bhavesh Donga, Director & Co-Founder, Addon Solutions Pvt Ltd.
“Based on the requirements we do feasibility check, there could be some features which may be out of the scope for us to develop in a cross-platform. Therefore, after doing an accurate analysis of the requirements, we suggest them which platform they should use and which is better for them: native or cross platform.” ~ Vimal Shah, Director, AGILE Infoways.
“We prefer working using native technologies that demonstrate a better usability compared to hybrid. It is a bit difficult to develop and support Android and iOS on different screens when you develop hybrid.” ~ Oleg Dats, CEO, Tech Magic.
Conclusion;
Selecting an appropriate platform for your app doubles the ratio of user engagement and generating a huge revenue.
When you opt for hybridor native platform, have an accurate analytics of time spent by users on both desktop and mobile. This plays a major role.
Besides, study the advantages and disadvantages of both these platforms that vary with different segments.
Here is a quick glance: Native Vs Hybrid
Considering these two factors will help you in determining your decision.
The third criteria that need to be discussed: Deciding Between Android and iOS
The mobile market is booming and therefore, it has become crucial to develop a mobile application that represents your business in this vigorous competitive world.
Yes, today it’s a primary phenomenon to have an application build with your company’s name. Releasing it on the app store is a secondary thing. But which platform, Android or iOS? That’s where you get confused and sometimes you drop your idea of app implementation.
Don’t do that, instead, seek the help of a techie and shape your app concept.
For you, we have already accumulated a few interesting replies from the leading development companies;
“Earlier clients didn’t know what to look for. But today clients are wise and they know exactly what they want. They even know what their competitor’s apps have and what not. And, that’s why it has become more exciting and enjoying to work with intelligent and passionate clients. However, we get both types of clients – one who knows everything about their app. And, one who just have an idea and want to get their app developed. For this category of client, we always suggest them to do some market research (if they want to). We help them with the research part so that we can assist them if getting the notch results and help them choose the best platform for their app. Besides, if the clients already know their user-base, they already know which platform to choose.”~ Prateek Saxena, Managing Director, AppInventiv Technologies.
“We request the clients to understand the business needs before developing the application. Location matters as well. For instance, in the USA, Google and Apple keep their data open so it is easy to see the number of people using Android and iOS apps. We would like our clients to check the capacity of the market they target and make the best platform choice.”~ Oleg Dats, CEO, Tech Magic.
“As we know that Android platform has a bigger audience but less revenue per user and iOS is visa-versa so if you plan to build a paid app, it's better to go with iOS, and if you are planning to implement monetization in your app then it's better to go with Android.“ ~ Niketan Sharma, Business Development Manager, SigmaTech Infosolution.
“It depends on what the target market is and what is the product catering to? For example, if the target market is India, I would say go for Android first because penetration is huge but if the target market is US, UK, Australia then go for iOS first. There are multiple other factors to be considered in this regard like in-app purchase, etc.” ~ Baati Mittal, VP, Operations, OnGraph Technologies.
Conclusion;
Opting for both Android & iOS at the initial business level may not be the smart work. Pick any one focusing on the market you want to cater to, stability and business growth. Doing this will allow you to easily analyse the user behaviour, the time spent on your app and other relevant aspects. Later if you think that the app is helping you in generating good revenue and is able to cater wide audience then only go for the latter mobile technology.
Let us pick the trending app, Prisma which got launched in June 2016. This app made the debut in iOS and grabbed the biggest audience worldwide with 7.5 million downloads and 1 million active users in the first week of the launch. Furthermore, it was the leading app in the Russian iTunes store and other neighbouring countries.
Later when Android version got released in July it noticed over 1.7 million downloads with 50 million pictures processed.
The reason this app could scream aloud is the technology and the image editing tool which turned out to be the unique selling point (USP).
Therefore, you should consider the above factors before deciding between Android & iOS.
Moving on to the last section:App Development Cost and Time
Evaluation of time and cost is based on;
-
Type of The Application
-
Project Complexities
-
Resources Required and
-
Technology Used
Take a look at what the leading development companies have to say on this;
“To evaluate the development cost and time, we see the length of the application at first. For understanding this factor lets consider two examples. You are going to develop aGPS tracking application where you track your vehicle, where it is moving and need alerts if they are going out of the geofence. So this application has GPS tracking basic features, which is a simple version of the app. Now the other version of the same app can be GPS tracking application with fleet management where you add details of the vehicle, wear and tear details, average fuel consumption, how many drivers use this vehicle, when a particular vehicle requires service – all these kinds of alerts would be required. So the size of the application is one of the major factors when deciding the cost of a mobile application. Secondly, we consider how many resources we need in the team, then comes the complexity of the project and the time frame of the application – if the client wants the final product on an urgent basis then we may have to add more resources. So these are the basic criteria we consider for deciding the price factor of a mobile application.” ~ Bhavesh Donga, Director & Co-Founder, Addon Solutions Pvt Ltd.
“It mainly depends on the customers’ budget and the kind of application they want to build. Based on their requirements, we can evaluate the time required to design, develop, and do QA checks. It then becomes easier for us to evaluate the approximate time frame for developing an application.” ~ Roman Leshukov, CEO & Director of Design, Iron Water Studio.
“We take into account the following factors before deciding the cost of a mobile application – the client’s global task understanding, the amount of efforts required from our side, strictness of NDA and future perspective with a client.” ~ Vlad Korobov, COO, Live Typing.
“It all boils downs to the type of application. For example, if I take a chat application into consideration then a lot of complex work is involved on the back end side like making the chat server, or in case of a video-streaming solution the bulk of the work would be on the back end side in setting up the streaming server, setting its frequency, the connections and similar things. So these are back-end intensive applications whereas in the case of front end extensive applications a lot of business rule processing is required on the application side, like an audio/video processing on the application side with just minimal interaction with the back-end. Then there are apps like a regular social networking site where every action on the app is having an associated action on the back end. So at those places the effort would be like 50-50. 50% effort on the app side and 50% on the back-end side.” ~ Baati Mittal, VP, OnGraph Technologies.
Conclusion;
The app development cost and time are closely interlinked. After understanding the concept and analysing your requirement, the business analyst discusses a set of questions with you which includes the list of features, time, budget and technology.
Application cost and time wholly depends on features, manpower, complexities and technology.
If you opt for new features and new technology, the company charges you more price than usual as they cannot predict the time required to develop an application. Evaluation of manpower narrows down to time and complexities.
Complexities here relates to the number of devices and OSes, technical issues, the number of screens, UI design and animation. If you opt Android, it takes more time to develop an app because with the increase in the number of Android devices and OS support, the complexity to test the application increases. Whereas, the similar technical complexities get straitened in iOS.
Now the choice is yours. Be the decision maker for your app idea and grow your business by leaps.
Ending Note:
This discussion was based on the factors we evaluated interviewing the companies listed on GoodFirms. Though, mobile application development is not a new practice still the service seekers get puzzled while opting the right ingredients for their app idea.
If you think we have missed out any major factor that needed to be discussed, feel free to share it with us in the below comment section.
