Today, more and more companies are interested in the development of mobile applications for sales and expanding the client base.
Given the growing popularity of smartphones and the mobile Internet, such software has a number of advantages:
- convenience for the user, because the phone is always with you;
- simple platform, nice interface, which does not take a lot of time to load, as is the case with most sites;
- the development of mobile applications is carried out immediately under the screen and the capabilities of the smartphone, which compares favourably with the mobile version of web resources.
Application Development for Android and IOS: What Types are There
Due to the wide range of capabilities, applications are used today for various purposes:
- Like a Mobile Store.
The most common option, which is chosen by many trading platforms, as well as hotels, airlines for ticket sales. According to statistics, today about 53% of customers make purchases through applications, of which 88% buy within 24 hours.
- As Virtual Media or Media Resource.
The time of print media is gradually receding in the face of the onslaught of digital technologies. Moreover, mobile applications provide much more opportunities: from the phone, you can not only read information and view photos, but also start a video, listen to an audio recording, and access tweet feeds of the hottest news.
- As a Promo App.
This is a kind of advertising that allows you to tell about the nuances and benefits of a product that is just being introduced to the market. Thanks to such platforms, the client not only receives a complete overview of the product, but can also pre-order, and the manufacturer, in turn, receives data on the number of people interested in such a product.
- Like a Virtual Office.
Large companies have long seen applications as a business opportunity. With their help, it is convenient to view documents, upload them, carry out commercial operations, therefore, enterprises often create such “offices” for their key employees.
Development for Android or IOS?
Sometimes, due to the budget or some other factors, customers of applications are faced with a choice for which mobile OS to make software. The creation of applications for Android is still more popular today due to the wider audience of this OS, however, serious companies, of course, do both options so as not to lose consumers.
Recently, the market for mobile phones, smartphones and tablet PCs has grown tremendously. Naturally, the demand for mobile applications of various functional orientations has also risen, both for domestic (user) use, and as one of the main tools in production or in research practice. Let’s consider in more detail the specifics of creating such programs in order to have at least a superficial understanding of the principles of their functioning.
The development of an application or program for modern mobile devices, with the current development of technologies, should seem to be as simple and accessible as possible even for the users of electronic gadgets themselves. In fact, this is not the case. Such developments not only consist of a fairly large number of stages, but they are also very difficult to understand. By the way, many companies offer services for custom mobile application development for mobile devices.
Development Stages
As for the initial stage, everything is simple. First, the main idea or concept is formed. Then the purpose of the new application and its functional completeness is determined. At this stage, the main and some additional functions are formed.
Also, at the initial stage, a platform is selected for which the new application will be targeted. These can be popular Android and iOS, or specific software shells that are completely unknown to ordinary users.
At the next stage, engineers or programmers think about how to technically implement the tasks. And here it is just worth dwelling on the main types of applications being developed, since not only the amount of work to be done but also its complexity strongly depends on their choice.
The next step is to debug and test the newly created application. Weaknesses, shortcomings are identified and also (very often) some additional functions are added.
Application Types
Native applications are the most widely functional and at the same time the most time-consuming type for developers. These programs allow you to “squeeze” out of the operating system for which they are guided to the maximum. As a consequence, native applications allow a very wide range of functions to be performed simultaneously. In addition, they are usually also the fastest.
True, native applications have certain drawbacks. Such programs are initially focused on only one operating system, so developers often have to create several programs at once for each operating system separately.
Web Applications
This type works on the principle of a regular Internet resource. A smartphone or tablet user only needs to know the address of the page that leads to this application.
Web applications are not targeted at any particular mobile operating system, that is, they are cross-platform. This is their main advantage. The user only needs to have constant access to the Internet. Although it is possible to work in offline mode with a web browser installed on the mobile device. True, web applications are less functional and not as fast as the first ones.
As for the cost, which is important primarily for the end-user, this type of application is usually the least expensive.
Hybrid Applications
Hybrid applications are a kind of symbiosis between the first two types. They are both cross-platform (they can work with almost all popular operating systems) and multifunctional. Also, mashups are faster than the web and are less difficult to debug.
Hybrid applications are also great because they allow you to make “cosmetic” adjustments without having to completely rewrite the entire program structure.
That’s basically it.
