Mobile app development is one of the most lucrative domains of today’s time. The growth chart that it has found itself on has led to the creation of a class of entrepreneurs looking to make it big in the flourishing sector.
However, the growth chart that the domain has found itself in has led to an expansion of new approaches – each suited for individual project needs. The core at it however lies the understanding of what a mobile app development lifecycle is.
In this article, we are going to deep dive into what the mobile app development lifecycle is. This will give you – an entrepreneur – an understanding of what you are getting into when you prepare for app development.
What are the different stages of mobile app development?
Mobile App Planning
The first stage of mobile application development is always research and planning. Entrepreneurs spend this time doing market research and competitor analysis. They, at this stage, look for a product-market fit with an intent to ensure that their digital product or application establishes itself as one that is needed by the market.
The outcome of this stage is usually an app idea that has been tested for accuracy.
System Design
The second stage of the mobile app development lifecycle is the creation of a design system. The process helps give a visual representation of how the application will look. It is extremely crucial to keep the designing stage before the developmental phases since they, in many ways, act as a blueprint of how the users would move within the application and the goal they wish to achieve.
The outcome of this stage is usually a wireframe and a prototype
Technology Finalization
At this stage, the technology which will be used for building the application is finalized. The mobile app development team brainstorms which new-gen or time-tested technology will help the businesses achieve their goals through maximum efficiency.
Our tech experts at this stage, help you find the best tech stack for your digital product by understanding your business goals and ground-level requirements like the need for scalability, security, offline working, etc.
MVP Development
When you invest in mobile application development, you generally get two options: A. Develop a full-fledged application or B. Build an MVP first.
MVP is basically that version of your application which carries the best features of the product and is prepared to be tested by real users in the market. The intent of making an MVP is to understand if your product is something that the world needs.
At Appther, we always recommend our clients to build an MVP first and work on the suggestions they receive on the product before launching a full-fledged expensive digital product in the market.
Quality Assurance
The application is checked on multiple grounds to ensure that it runs glitch-free and hack-proof on all the devices a user wishes to use it on. Generally, a blend of manual and automated user acceptance testing is performed on the application before it is pushed on live.
We make testing a continuous process of our agile model of application development. Every version or feature that we create is tested on functionality grounds. This ensures that the application gets designed to be perfected from day one.
Deployment
The last part of the application development lifecycle is its deployment on the stores and/or enterprise systems. Here the deployment experts ensure that the application is made to be accepted by App Store and Google Play Store in one go. If we are talking about enterprise applications, the deployment team ensures that the app fits in the legacy system requirements of the enterprise to ensure minimum to zero work lags.
App Maintenance
The biggest mistake that an app entrepreneur makes is assuming that the work is done once the application is pushed on the app stores or in enterprises. The reality, however, is that the actual work begins now.
Once the application is made live in the stores, it has to be constantly monitored to ensure that it is running smoothly and that users are not facing any issue within the application. If and when an issue is found, it comes to the mobile app development company to work on the app’s maintenance and reassure users of its impeccable quality.
So here were the seven stages of the mobile app development lifecycle that are universally present in almost every app project. As you must have reckoned by now, the application development timeline by the time it covers all these phases extends to somewhere around 6 to 12 or even greater months.
While the massive timeline is good enough for the enterprises, it is the startups that often lose out on a competitive edge because of the slow development speed. Let us look into the ways mobile app development speed can be fastened as the final section of our article today.
How to Bring Down the Mobile App Development Timeline?
There are a number of approaches that a mobile app development agency can follow to bring down the application development timeline. Here are a few of the most common ones.
• Use cross-platform tools
• Build an MVP first
• Use agile application development
• Use wireframe first, before development
• Run automated testing
• Use APIs and third-party frameworks.
Recap.
At this point, we have covered every piece of information that you will need to get started with the app development space. The stages, as mentioned before, are ones that will be used irrespective of which category you decide to involve yourself in. However, the stages take up time, somewhere in months to years – if the project is complex. But there are multiple approaches that can be followed to bring the timeline down without letting it affect the quality and intent of the application.
The information that we stated can be a lot for a ‘new in the industry’ app entrepreneur to follow. If this is the case with you too, get in touch with our app development experts and let them handle your project requirements and guide you with the best-in-class approaches.
Extra read: How Mobile Applications Can Boost Your Business Sales & Revenues?
A great piece that sheds much-needed light on Mobile App Development Company and its impact on business as there are many new details you posted here. Sometimes it is not so easy to build a “Mobile App” without custom knowledge; here you need proper development skills and experience. However, the details you mention here would be very much helpful for the beginner.
Pingback: Top Mobile App Development Company for Startups & Enterprises - Appther Blog
We are a website development company and we deliver WordPress websites. We built a website application. We built mobile applications. We do IT infrastructure management services. We have fast delivery.
A great piece that sheds much-needed light on Mobile App Development Lifecycle and its impact on business as there are many new details you posted here. Sometimes it is not so easy to build a “Mobile App” without custom knowledge; here you need proper development skills and experience. However, the details you mention here would be very much helpful for the beginner. keep doing great stuff.