Mobile Technology

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Mobile Application Development

Mobile application development is the process of creating software applications that run on a mobile device, and a typical mobile application utilizes a network connection to work with remote computing resources.

Mobile application development is the process of making software for smartphones and digital assistants, most commonly for Android and iOS. The software can be preinstalled on the device, downloaded from a mobile app store or accessed through a mobile web browser. The programming and markup languages used for this kind of software development include Java, Kotlin, Python, Swift, C# and HTML5.

Mobile app development is rapidly growing. From retail, telecommunications and e-commerce to insurance, healthcare and government, organizations across industries must meet user expectations for real-time, convenient ways to conduct transactions and access information. Today, mobile devices—and the mobile applications that unlock their value—are the most popular way for people and businesses to connect to the internet. To stay relevant, responsive and successful, organizations need to develop the mobile applications that their customers, partners and employees demand, the available OS platform or platforms is iOS app development and Android app.

The vast majority—around 70 percent—of smartphones run Android. On the other hand, mobile applications developed for iOS have far fewer devices that need support, making optimization simpler. And user retention is typically higher for iOS applications.

The question is to Develop for both Android and iOS: Native apps or hybrid apps?

Let’s say you need to do mobile application development for both the Android operating system and iOS. What is the best software development approach? You could develop two native applications. Taking advantage of native APIs and OS-specific programming languages can help you build a powerful app. Most enterprise apps, especially ones that require substantial API traffic, benefit from native development.

If you decide to develop native applications one at a time, you’ll likely want to begin with Android—for some of the same reasons that independent app developers often focus on Android. One probably can develop the full application as an MVP on Android and then convert and optimize it to iOS after release.
You will still need to debug and rewrite the code for the native language and redesign the front-end user interface, because the two operating systems function very differently, making cross-platform operation impossible.
Another option is to go hybrid, taking a write-once-run-anywhere approach. Hybrid apps use a single codebase that can function on either platform. They’re typically coded in a programming language that’s universally recognized, such as Java, JavaScript, HTML or CSS. Because you’re denied access to the operating system’s native APIs, hybrid mobile application development works best for simple web applications.

Think light: Building for a mobile platform

Whether you choose native or hybrid mobile application development, one of the first hurdles you’ll need to overcome is the relatively limited resources on mobile devices. The target mobile device will have much less processing power and memory than desktop computers or enterprise servers.

Throughout the mobile application development process, developers must work to ensure that their mobile app is less resource intensive than a typical desktop application. Delivering a great user experience is vital. That starts with understanding that your user interface for a mobile app should be simpler than a desktop application interface. By creating a straightforward UX design that is focused on critical functions, you can provide a better user experience while consuming fewer resources

Offload processing to the cloud

What if your mobile application requires more processing than a typical mobile platform can support? Consider offloading that processing to the cloud. Through the judicious use of APIs, you can connect your app to cloud-based services and databases to provide advanced functionality without slowing your application or straining the device it is running on. You can even offload data storage and caching to a cloud-based server, leaving very little data on the device.

Techeva leverages Java, Kotlin, Python, Swift and the following frameworks for Mobile app development.