Checklist for Choosing Best Mobile App Development

Platform
Every person owns a smart phone today and the smartest thing that you can do for your business
today is to have a mobile app for it. With user preferences and likes changing radically, staying on
top of competition requires you to have the best mobile app out there. The first thing that you
should decide upon for this is your mobile app development platform – iOS or Android or
Windows? Which one should you choose and why become the pertinent questions here. We’ve
taken up this very question in this blog and have come up with a checklist to help you choose the
best mobile app development platform for your business; read on to learn more.

• Choosing native or hybrid applications

Now that we decided upon having a mobile app, there are a few technical jargons that we need to
contend one. Let’s take a brief look at them first. A native app is simply one which is built on the
user’s OS and thus follow the specific OS’s guidelines. For example, if your own an iPhone and we
are talking of a native app, we are simply referring to an app that has been built on the iOS.
Similarly, if it is an Android phone, we are talking about an app built on the native Java OS. A hybrid
app on the other hand run fueled by the company’s website with some wrapping done to ensure
that it looks and feels like a native app.

Now that we’ve detailed as to what a native and a hybrid app is, let’s see the advantages of both.
The major benefit of a native app is that the cost for the entire project will be less as the app needs
to work on only one platform whereas in a hybrid app, we need to wrap it for multiple platforms
and hence the cost would be a bit more.

Native applications are the perfect choice for the development and invention part. Native apps
give superior experience and performance which is not possible with hybrid applications
considering similar cost footing. They are better and faster too when compared to hybrid apps.

If you are thinking that all I am hearing is positives of a native app, so why are there hybrid apps
and do they really have any advantages? We’ll answer this question for you right away! Hybrid
apps have their advantages too – they are portable (can be used in multiple platforms), they have
access to various hardware and software components via plug-ins and have faster time to market.
They also have cheaper cost of origination when compared to a native app.
• Understand your audience
Understanding your audience will help you decide the platform too. For instance, App Store users
pay money for apps while most Play Store Apps are free. Getting a clear idea of whether your app
belongs in both categories, the former or the latter can give you the much-needed detail to nail
down the platform for your mobile app. You can also consider your revenue options when you
understand your audience – will it be a free app, a premium one or will it have an upgrade choice
and are you focusing on generating revenue from ads and so on. Also pay attention to the
geography of your audience and see what is popular in the area and keep it in mind while choosing
the platform.

• Cost and security constraints

Will your app development require additional costs? What is the budget that you plan to spend
for testing and user experience and what are the security constraints that you need to place on
your app? Considering all of this and also analyzing which tests you would be required to pass for
getting your app into the App Store or Play Store can help you get a clear idea of your costing. If
one platform emphasizes on certain checks and controls even though it isn’t really relevant for your
app while the other doesn’t, you may consider going with the latter. Having all such crucial
information with you before you give your decision a thought is critical to choosing the right
platform.

Apart from these, you should also focus on app utility patterns, information reach and cost of
development for a single platform and multiple platforms and align them with your company’s
long-term plans for the mobile app under consideration for choosing the best mobile app
development platform.

Source: https://www.laitkor.com/checklist-for-choosing-best-mobile-app-development-platform/