Mobile application has become mandatory for almost all businesses. Customers feel it is the most convenient way to shop or use any online services.
Mobile app is one more way to stay close to your customers. It is perfect when it comes to interacting with customers and improving customer engagement.
As a business, you can provide better customer experience and services. This will be a major advantage to your business in the future.
So, the next question is what types of development you will choose for mobile app development. We all know about custom development, but there are other ways too.
Let's explore each development process to figure out what fits best for you.
The traditional way of developing a mobile application builds feature-rich and stable apps. Any complex requirements can be fulfilled with a custom development process. For Android apps, developers mostly use Kotlin, whereas, for iOS apps, Swift is used.
These are the base languages introduced by Google and Apple for mobile application development. As they are the oldest of all languages, you will have more study material, references, and a strong community to help you with questions.
Custom development requires development from scratch and thus takes time. You will require two different development teams if you want apps for both platforms. It might be heavy on your pocket as you will be on two different teams.
The code developed on cross-platform like Flutter works for both Android and iOS. This means you don’t need multiple developers. With only one team, you can develop two apps. The platform is new compared to custom development, but it has been in the industry for many years now. Thus, community support and constant updates will keep you going.
If you choose cross-platform development, you will save a lot of money that goes into development. Not just money but the challenges associated with development reduces. For example, in traditionally developed apps, if you have any changes in the app after development, you have to make changes in both codes. But if you are developing on a cross-platform, you have to make changes in one app, and it will reflect in both apps. Thus, it will take less time to execute changes and debug the code.
One of the easiest ways to build a mobile app is via an app builder. It is a framework designed to build mobile apps. It requires very less code development. For ecommerce stores, small businesses, or startups, mobile app builders are the best choice. You will pay less, and the app will develop within a few days.
Most of the features are already developed, and you to drag and drop the ones you want. You will get what you see on the screen. No code development is required for those features. Customization of payment gateways and any other additions will only require development. Thus, the total development drastically reduces.
There are a lot of frameworks available in the market, like Magento 2 mobile app builder. These apps are mostly designed keeping ecommerce stores in mind. You will get all the advanced features that an ecommerce app would require.
If you have a limited budget and want a mobile app to go live as soon as possible, a mobile app builder would be perfect for you. It is one-time investment that will surely give you high returns. If you want a mobile app for testing new things, an app builder would be the right choice for you. If you are a Magento store owner, building an app with a Magento app builder would be more helpful.
Mr. Maulik Shah is the founder & CEO of AppJetty, a digital software products store specializing in extensions, plugins and apps for host of software platforms like Magento, WordPress, SugarCRM, SuiteCRM, Odoo, Dynamics CRM, etc.