The Complete Beginner's Guide to Mobile Application Development

The Complete Beginner’s Guide

to Mobile Application Development

WHITE PAPER

Mobile Application

Development An Overview

Step-by-Step Guide

Have an App Idea?

Choose Device Platforms

As of the third quarter of 2019, there were 2.47 million apps on Android’s app

store and 1.8 million on Apple’s app store. Another data suggests that there are

more than 12 million registered mobile app developers globally.

Whether you are a business looking to develop a mobile app to engage with

your audience, mobile app developer building an app for a client or amateur

dabbling with mobile app development out of curiosity, here is a step by step

guide to walk you through the mobile application development process.

Businesses of all sizes, from single person company to a conglomerate, can

beneﬁt from developing apps that focus on diﬀerent products and services.

Whether you are in retail business or banking and ﬁnance or education

industry, all you need to build mobile application is an idea to get you started.

As mentioned earlier, mobile applications have two major platforms – Android

and iOS. The platform that you use should depend upon your business goals

and what your intended customers are using.

Android platform is more popular than iOS because Google makes it available

to companies developing or launching their own mobile phones. In contrast, iOS

is available only on Apple’s own devices.

iOS platform provides better security and is perceived premium, so many

companies prefer to launch their app ﬁrst on the apple Appstore. iOS apps have

higher entry barrier in terms of both entry fees and the expensive Mac devices

you need to develop the applications.

You must brainstorm with your team or mentors for multiple app ideas. Each app

idea must be researched for feasibility, viability and suitability in the target market.

According to Statista, global mobile data traﬃc is projected to grow seven times

between 2017 and 2022. More and more people are using the Internet through

their smartphones and prefer mobile applications to mobile websites. This is

because mobile applications are easily accessible, easier to use and fully

customizable to individual preferences.

Develop for both Android and iOS

Select a programming language

It is deﬁnitely possible to develop for both Android and iOS. If your customers

use both Android and iOS phones, you will need to develop application for both

platforms. When developing for both the platform you need to strategize and

take an approach that allows you to reuse code, saving time and resources.

After you have chosen the platforms for which you want to develop the app, you

need to select a programming language. The most important criteria in

selecting the programming language is the type of app you will develop – native,

hybrid, cross platform or progressive web apps.

Besides the type of app, you also need to take stock of existing skills and what

can be upgraded quickly. It does not make sense to invest time and money in

learning a new language from scratch when there are so many options available.

Don’t be in a hurry to zero-in on a language. Weigh the pros and cons of each

option before deciding.

Depending upon the features of the app to be developed, one language might

be more suitable than others. Look into list of in-built and third-party libraries

available to judge what suits you best.

Each of the language has its own pros and cons, and you must consider them

before ﬁnalizing a language for app development. For example, if you want to

avoid the verbose Java code, you can choose Kotlin for a leaner and cleaner

code. If you want more control over coding of your cross-platform app,

TypeScript with its static typing might suit you better than JavaScript.

Here are some popular languages for mobile app development:

Swift and Objective-C for iOS native apps

Java and Kotlin for Android native apps

Xamarin, Flutter, React Native, etc. for cross-platform apps

Alternatives for Building

Mobile Applications

Before the actual development process, you need to take quite a few decisions

about the mobile app. The ﬁrst one usually is the platform to be used to

develop the application. After that you can choose from any of the four diﬀerent

approaches to building mobile apps, all of which are discussed here brieﬂy.

Native Mobile Applications

Cross-Platform Native Mobile Applications

Hybrid Mobile Applications

Progressive Web Applications

Native mobile applications use the operating system and frameworks provided

by the app platform. Apps built using native language boast of:

You can also choose to build applications for any one language and then

convert the same codebase for other platforms. Such applications are

developed using standard frameworks that would work on both Android and

iOS platforms. Cross platform mobile applications are compiled into a native

application that runs on the operating system of the mobile device.

Like cross platform mobile applications, hybrid mobile applications are

developed using frameworks that would work equally well on both the

platforms. They are not compiled into native applications but installed as

bundles that run-in web containers when launched by the user.

As the name suggests, progressive web applications are not developed

as mobile applications. They are web applications that give a feeling of

mobile application when accessed through smartphones. Progressive

web applications are not launched and made available to the people

through any of the app stores.

Faster development times

Ability to build more robust applications

Access to platform speciﬁc features

Better development experience

Remember that if you prefer native apps, you can focus on one of the platforms

and then convert the code to the other platform. You will need to redesign the

interface because the two platforms are quite diﬀerent when it comes to

rendering the app on users’ screen. Otherwise, if you choose your language and

framework judiciously, you should be able to reuse most of the code.

There are two approaches to developing cross platform applications:

Hybrid apps are best suited for smaller applications

that do not need much resources.

Consider the diﬀerences between them, which are listed in this table.

Native app

Best runtime performance

Separate codebases for each

platform need to be maintained.

Higher app building cost

Best runtime performance

Uses platform frameworks

Unable to access native APIs,

reducing runtime performance

Single codebase that runs

on each platform.

Less cost as compared to native

application development

Accesses device hardware plugins and native

modules, which restricts the performance

Uses web frameworks

Hybrid app

How do Hybrid/Cross-platform Frameworks work?

As you know by now, non-native applications cannot access device hardware or

software directly. Hybrid or cross platform applications are written in universal

languages like JavaScript, CSS or HTML, which would run on all platforms. When

the application is launched on the user’s system, it runs in a container that enables

these web applications to behave like native applications. If you already have a web

app, most of the code can be reused in mobile application development.

Use platforms like ReactJS and NativeJS that provide native modules

Use platforms like Flutter and Xamarin that compile the code into native code

Comparing Native Apps vs. Hybrid Mobile Applications

You have an app idea, but you are confused whether you should build

native apps for both platforms separately or a hybrid one. Understanding

your intended audience’s expectations from the app is key to deciding

between native and hybrid mobile application development.

Mobile Application

Development Lifecycle

Mobile application life cycle is not much diﬀerent from software or web application

life cycle. It always starts with an idea that you must research to ﬁnd its feasibility in

the current market scenario. Once you are sure that your app will solve some user

problem, you can go ahead with the actual development.

Wireframes and Prototyping

Deﬁning the Frontend and Backend

Before the actual coding begins, a lot of thought must go into what the app

would bring to your users. Wireframes are a good way of understanding what

your app would do and how. There are no design elements included in

wireframe. These are some of the information that must be included in a

wireframe so that all the stakeholders understand what they are signing up for:

Wireframe is a two-dimensional depiction of your app. After creating a wireframe,

you should include the design elements into it and develop a clickable prototype

for the app. Prototyping allows you to get a look and feel of how the application

would actually be used by the audience. It should include buttons that you click

to go to other screens, as a real user would do for the app.

Once you have the prototype ready, you need to deﬁne the front end and the

back end for the app. The initial mobile applications were self-contained units that

functioned on the user’s smartphones without any connection to the external

world. However, as the availability of internet data increased, some of the data

and functions could be oﬀ loaded to the back end on the cloud.

This need arose primarily because smartphones have less resources as

compared to web apps. The mobile apps were shortened versions of web apps. But,

if some of the features could be oﬄoaded to cloud, a fully featured mobile app could

be a reality. And this is what happened with increased availability of internet and

cloud storage space. To improve their own eﬃciency and performance, developers

started deﬁning tasks that could be relegated to the cloud as backend.

How the application will help the users

User journey through the application

Identify possible pitfalls

Positioning of important menus, navigation & content areas, and other elements

Mobile Application Front-End

Mobile Application Back-End

Mobile application front end is typically the user interface. The front end

focuses on interface design and user experiences through awesome visual

and interactive elements. When a user downloads the app, it is the front

end that gets downloaded. It resides on the user’s mobile and can be

accessed by clicking on an icon on the screen.

What a Front-end Development Workﬂow Looks Like?

How Mobile Apps Integrate with the Backend?

How to Interact with the Backend Data?

The front end typically uses programming interface is called APIs to connect

with the backend. These APIs could be provided by the back-end service provider or

developed in-house. Developing in house is becoming rarer as fully customizable

software development kits (SDKs) are easily available for use. There are wide range of

APIs available and even more variety of ways in which they are accessed.

The back end of a mobile application could be maintained by the app owners

or a third-party cloud service provider. With organizations adopting lean and agile

methodologies, developers prefer outsourcing backend to third party service

providers who are responsible for providing the infrastructure and maintaining it.

The number of people involved in this workﬂow depends upon the size of the

application. In case of a very small application all the stages could be handled by just

one or two developers. But for enterprise-wide apps, dedicated teams could be

handling each stage of the work ﬂow.

Back end data typically stores user information on cloud rather than the device

itself. This makes the app lightweight but increases the time lag between request

and response. Developers need to program the APIs in such a way that users do

not feel the lag due to the data source being away from the device itself.

ANALYZE

DEVELOP

RELEASE

DEVELOP

MONITOR CYCLE

TEST

Android developer program can be easily joined if you already have a

google account. Google play store is not very strict about app distribution.

You can distribute the apps outside the store and let the users directly

download and use them.

TechAhead

TechAhead is a global leader in Mobile Platforms that is trusted by Fortune 500

companies to Startups. Founded in 2009, we are a 150 people company having a decade

long proven track record in engineering innovative, robust, and scalable apps at speed.

Email us at [email protected] or give us a call at (818) 318-0727

(8:00 am to 5:00 pm paciﬁc time). We usually respond within one business day.

Publish Your App to The App Store

To publish your app to the app store, you must join the App store’s developer

program. Once you join the program you get access to native APIs, beta releases

and proprietary frameworks. Follow the store guidelines and benchmarks to

develop quality applications.

Test Locally, Test Globally

As mobile apps are no longer conﬁned to the users’ device, developers need to

test the app both locally and globally. Local testing ensures that local servers are

working properly, and users are getting the awesome experience that the app was

designed for. It also checks the APIs responsible for integration of front end and

Global testing is required for applications that oﬄoad their backend to cloud, the

most common scenario in the current mobile app development ecosystem.