Mobile app development is thriving like never before. With the invention and innovation of new mobile devices and OS’, it has now become imperative for every business to create mobile apps presenting their products and services. Though making a business app has become an easy task, but if you are looking at your app as a tool for your business growth, then you need adequate strategies, effort, cost, and the right sort of marketing campaign.
A Mobile Application Development for a Business is not just technological innovation. You need business knowledge and skills to develop a user-friendly application. In this blog, we are going to highlight few key points which every business owner, app developer as well as service-providing company should remember before developing a mobile app.
There are usually 5 types of mobile applications that mobile application development companies offer namely: Content-based apps, M-Commerce apps, Marketplace apps, Native apps, and Hybrid apps. In the following paragraphs, we will discuss each of these types of apps in detail.
These types of applications provide access to information (e.g., search engines, video libraries, and digital galleries). The main disadvantage of content-based applications is that sometimes they are not supported by the iOs platform.
If you want to sell something online and need an app, then M-commerce applications are for you. M-commerce applications allow you to display a wide variety of products in a single place. Further, it allows your users to compare products and make a purchase easily. The main disadvantage of m-Commerce applications is that with ready-made themes, there may arise scalability issues later. Application once developed cannot be modified according to the needs of the customer due to ready-made themes and platform used. Further, m-Commerce cannot be customized.
A marketplace application is a type of application that connects sellers with buyers. It’s often known as an electronic marketplace. In this type of application, the transactions are usually managed by the website owner; however, it is not necessary. Organizations use online marketplaces to reach customers who want to purchase their products and services. This kind of application is the best for B2B businesses, which aim to facilitate businesses between sellers and buyers.
One of the most unique benefits of marketplace application is that it allows displaying a large number of products from different sellers in one place so that customers can browse, choose and purchase easily. Further, it also allows customers to compare the prices of a product from different sellers and get the best deal. However, a marketplace application is expensive as it is extremely complex. If this application is developed using a ready-made theme, it becomes difficult to scale it later on with the growth of the business.
Custom applications can be designed and engineered to provide a highly tailored experience to users, incorporating specific functionality to meet the unique needs of businesses and their internal or external customers. These mobile applications can be developed keeping in mind the unique needs of customers and businesses. Custom or unique mobile applications allow the business to stand out in the crowd as they are specifically designed for a business. One of the major benefits of this kind of application is, it can be scaled to any extent later on as the need arises. However, these applications are costly as they are designed from scratch and involve a lot of development work.
A native app is a software application built in a specific programming language, for the specific device platform, either iOS or Android. Native apps are very fast and responsive because they are built for that specific platform and are compiled using platforms’ core programming language and APIs. As a result, the app is much more efficient. Further, native applications tend to have fewer bugs as they do not rely on any cross-platform tool.
Hybrid application is a blend, hence the name hybrid, of both native and web solutions. Where the core of the application is written using web technologies(HTML, CSS, and JavaScript), which are then encapsulated within a native application. Through the use of plugins, these applications can have full access to the mobile device’s features.
These are some of the options for mobile application development options that start-up businesses can go for according to their business requirements and scope.