Mobile apps have entered the realms of consumer and business technology landscapes. With more and more activities moving to mobile devices, companies are putting more money into custom mobile apps to connect with customers and simplify operations.
By developing bespoke mobile apps, companies have great flexibility to include features and capabilities that are specific to their needs. But the mobile app landscape is changing fast. To build high-performing native apps, developers must be up to date with the latest trends and device capabilities. If you are a business that wants to be in this space and excel, it would be a good idea for you to explore custom software development services, which can give you a lot of insight and tools to be competitive in this space: https://www.luxoft.com/services/custom-software-development.
In this article, we will talk about the most significant trends that are currently shaping custom mobile app development and proven strategies to develop state of the art apps while ensuring they are stable.
Key Mobile App Development Trends
Several tech innovations and shifts in consumer behavior are disrupting mobile app development today. Keeping up with the latest trends is key for developers to create relevant apps that align with user expectations.
5G Networking
Rollout of high speed 5G networks globally is allowing mobile apps to open up new possibilities. 5G enables faster downloads and uploads, lower latency, and connectivity for more devices at the same time. Rich multimedia content and real time capabilities can now be integrated into your apps.
Dynamic resource allocation is one way developers need to optimize apps to run on 5G speeds. It’s also important to upgrade the app backend infrastructure to deal with increased 5G workloads.
Beacon Technology
Small wireless transmitters and beacons are used to track and provide experiences based on location. Beacons are being used already by retailers to send special offers to users near them in stores, and their adoption is expected to skyrocket as the infrastructure improves.
Beacon technology can be integrated into mobile apps for diverse proximity based interactions such as check in, contactless payments and micro-location targeting. It offers chances to boost customer engagement.
Enhanced Security
Today, security is still a major concern to mobile app users. Now, developers have more tools to build secure apps, without sacrificing user experience.
Apps are highly secure because of attention to advancements like biometric authentication, data and encryption, blockchain integration and AI-driven threat detection. These technologies need to be leveraged proactively by developers to build user trust.
On-Device AI
AI advancements have made their way from the cloud to edge devices. Today’s smartphones and tablets can handle AI-powered functionalities like voice assistants, audio-video analytics and augmented reality (AR) features natively.
By building device-based AI capabilities into mobile apps, developers can enable smarter, faster and more personalized apps even without internet connectivity.
Cross-Platform Development
Developers are now pushed to build mobile apps faster and with less budget, and that’s why we are seeing the rise of cross platform development tools such as React Native, Xamarin and Flutter. This allows using the same code for iOS and Android platforms.
Cross platform development brings a productivity gain but also demands performance optimization for native experiences. The parity between cross platform apps and native apps is growing as tools mature.
App Cloning
App cloning tools like Appy Pie AppMakr allow non-coders to create custom mobile apps by customizing templatized apps and connecting them to various backends. These DIY platforms are gaining traction among small businesses.
Professional developers must take on more advisory roles in these scenarios – guiding even non-technical teams through app architecture, technical tradeoffs and optimizations.
Key Strategies for Custom Mobile App Development
Creating custom mobile apps that delight users requires much more than just coding skills. Developers must also focus on UX design, security, performance testing and post-launch enhancement plans.
Here are proven development strategies:
Adopt Agile Methodology
Mobile apps don’t work with long release cycles and waterfall development approach anymore. To push quick updates to the mobile app lifecycles, the methodology followed must be agile and iterative sprints.
Continuous integration and testing happen early on with Agile. Apps can be adapted fast to changing needs, and developers can get user feedback faster.
Focus on UX First
In the mobile domain, user experience is the differentiator. While custom apps have more features, complexity really hurts UX. Clean, intuitive navigation and interactions require developers to apply UX principles ‘upfront’.
Earlier, using UX flows to prototype with wireframing tools can detect pain points early on before any hard coding has begun. It also helps to build shared understanding through workshops with business teams.
Design for Performance
App performance has a huge impact on user perception. Factors like launch times, lag, crashes and power consumption determine ratings. Developers must rigorously test app performance across intended devices using tools like Xcode Instruments.
Optimizing code, minimizing app size, using efficient data structures/algorithms and regularly profiling resource usage improve performance.
Build Future-Proof Designs
Business needs keep changing. So app architectures must be modular, with separation of concerns across presentation, business logic and data layers. This facilitates easier enhancements.
Developers should utilize patterns like dependency injection and inversion of control to reduce tight coupling. Documentation and intuitive naming also increase the maintainability of custom code.
Automate Testing
Automated testing enables quality assurance across the app lifecycle. Unit testing validates modular functions. Integration testing checks end-to-end flows. Performance testing reveals usage bottlenecks.
Developers should ideally shift testing left through test-driven development. Writing test cases upfront leads to modular, reusable code that lends itself better to automation.
Sign-Off UAT Deployments
After rigorous internal testing, user acceptance testing (UAT) will be conducted across representative user devices and usage scenarios. Fix any defects promptly before release.
Capture user feedback on capabilities, navigation, performance and security. Measure key metrics like load times, crash rates and power consumption during UAT trials.
Support Post-Launch
Initial launches are only the beginning of app development. New features must be provided to support enhancement releases, apps must be optimized continually depending on market response and technological changes etc.
Identify the plan post launch support such as, building telemetry capabilities to measure usage monitoring if any, DevOps automation pipeline for rapid iterations, technical documentation maintenance and maintenance training.
Conclusion
Custom mobile app development must keep pace with rapid platform advancements and shifts in end-user behavior patterns. Developers have to master diverse technologies from 5G, beacons and biometrics to AI, AR and cross-platform tools.
However, technical skills alone cannot guarantee app success. Developers have to focus on UX design, modular/scalable architectures, rigorous testing and post-launch support to build market-winning custom mobile apps. Using agile delivery models is imperative to accommodate new features/enhancements faster.
By combining development best practices with the latest mobile advancements, custom mobile apps provide outstanding opportunities for businesses to boost productivity, engagement, sales and branding. Investing in custom mobile apps built on robust strategies yields rich dividends today and serves as a foundation for continued innovation.
