I’ve got some good news for you; iOS development isn’t as difficult as other types of programming. But with that said, it’s still something you need to learn before you can just jump right in.
Fortunately, the Internet is full of resources and tools, so you can teach yourself how to build an iOS app.
However, those tools are spread out all over the place. That’s definitely the most optimal way to learn something new.
Even if you’re an experienced iOS developer, taking advantage of different tools and resources can simplify your development process.
Rather than spending days or even weeks doing endless Google searches, I wanted to make it as easy as possible for you to find relevant tools. This ultimate list of iOS app development tools has been broken down into five sections.
Language resources
Editors and IDEs
Libraries
YouTube tutorials
Plugins
So feel free to jump around to the section that you need the most help with. Whether you’re a beginner, expert, or somewhere in between, you can use this guide to help you build an iOS app.
Developing an Android app isn’t the easiest thing that you’ll ever do. It can be an overwhelming task, especially if you’ve never done it before.
But with that said, using Android development tools can make your life much easier.
Even experienced developers take advantage of tools and resources to help them through the development process. The problem is there is so much information online; it’s tough to know which guide to follow.
That was my inspiration for creating this guide.
Here you’ll be able to find all of the tools and resources you need for Android development in one place. I’ve broken the tools down into four categories:
Android language resources
Editors and IDEs for Android development
Android libraries
Android plugins
So feel free to navigate to the section you need assistance with. Regardless of your Android development project, there are plenty of tools on this list that will help you out.
For years, developers and people within the mobile app industry have had a great debate. It’s the ultimate question in development technology.
Which is better? Mobile web experience or mobile applications?
Here’s my answer. Mobile applications are better. But with that said, now we’ve got a new trend that utilizes the technology of both mobile web browsing and mobile applications.
It’s called a progressive web app, or PWA for short.
But since this technology is so new, lots of people have questions about how it works. Some of you may have heard of progressive web apps, but you’re unsure if it’s best for your situation.
Fortunately, I’m here to help you out. As an expert in the technology and mobile app industries, I can explain what you need to know about PWAs.
We’ll also talk about why they are becoming so popular as of the last few years. Here’s what you need to know.
But with that said, everything is easier if you have a guide or reference that you can follow. While there isn’t a black and white blueprint for developing a mobile application, there are are still plenty of resources that can help you.
As an industry expert who has experience as a developer, I’ve identified the top mobile app best practices for you to keep in mind when you’re going through the development process.
I’ll explain what you need to know about each one of these best practices so that you can set yourself up for success. Here are the top 17 factors to prioritize.
As you know, there are lots of different things that you need to take into consideration when you’re building a mobile application.
With so much to keep track of, certain elements of development could get lost in the shuffle. That’s why I always say that you should stay organized with submission checklists and other tools.
But one factor that seems to always get swept under the rug and forgot about is the actual screen of the different mobile phones.
For starters, smartphone screens are important because there are lots of different screen sizes. Whether you’re deciding to build for Apple or Android, both platforms have tons of different devices.
Resolution and aspect ratio is also important. That’s because the resolution of different screens can affect how designers build their apps. Based on this information, there are certain tools that all app designers must have.
So as you can see, both screen size and resolution size are important, but for different reasons.
Understanding size and resolution can help you optimize your mobile app for a variety of devices. This refers to both smartphones, tablets, and even smart TVs or other screens where users can download your app.
With that in mind, I wanted to provide you with an informative guide for these topics. No matter what stage of development your app is currently in, I’m sure you’ll find this very helpful.
Here’s what you need to know.
How to calculate pixels per inch
You’ve got to understand the difference between the size of the screen and the dimensions of the screen resolution.
Screen size gets measured using inches. It’s the size of the actual screen of a particular device.
For example, here are the screen sizes of some of the latest iPhones from Apple that you’re probably familiar with.
Not every mobile cell phone is the same. Some of smartphones have bigger screens. I’ve seen smartphone screen sizes that won’t even fit in my pocket. All of this impacts pixel density, pixel size, width, and more.
Here’s how to measure phone screen size. You need to use diagonal measurement. Start from top left corner of the screen and measure the length to the opposite diagonal corner. It’s pretty straightforward, and anyone with a ruler can do this.
This example uses inches. But if your developer or designer is using the metric system, they’d need to convert inches to centimeters.
Screen resolution is a little bit different. The resolution is measured by the number of distinguishable pixels that can be displayed in each dimension.
You need to know the size of the screen as well as the resolution to calculate the pixels per inch (PPI) of a device. Here’s how you calculate PPI:
Add the squares of both numbers in the resolution
Take the square root of that number
Divide the previous number by the size of the screen
It sounds a little bit complicated, but I’ll give you an example to show you what I’m talking about. You’re probably going to need a calculator to do this.
Let’s use the iPhone X, since it’s new, and we’ve already covered the screen size and resolution. We’ve got all of the information that we need to calculate the PPI.
2436 x 2436 + 1125 x 1125 = 7199721(squaring both numbers of the resolution)
7199721/2683.23= 2683.23(square root of previous answer)
2683.23 5.8 (inch screen) = 462 PPI
According to the Apple iPhone technical specifications, their PPI of the 2436 x 1125 pixel 5.8 inch iPhone X is 458, so our calculations weren’t far off.
Using this formula, try a couple of examples on your own. It’s easy to find out the exact specifications of different devices by just looking it up from the manufacturer’s website.
Basically, you’ve got to realize that since screen size and screen resolution both play a role in determining the PPI, it can tell you how well an image gets displayed on that particular device.
So what happens if you try to combine this formula using two devices of different sizes and resolutions? It just won’t work out well.
For example, let’s take the resolution of an old iPhone model like the 4-inch SE and apply it to 12.9-inch iPad Pro.
Follow the formula using the pixel resolution above.
1136 x 1136 + 640 x 640= 1700096
1700096/1303.88 = 1303.88
But now instead of dividing that number by the 4-inch screen size, like you’re supposed to, let’s divide it by the 12.9, which is the size of an iPad Pro.
1303.88 / 12.9 = 101.08
As you can see. The PPI is super low, which means that if this resolution were on a larger screen, the images just wouldn’t compute well.
That’s why you need to optimize your images to account for various screen sizes, but we’ll discuss that in greater detail shortly.
Different types of screens
So we’ve already established that different devices have a wide range of screen sizes and resolutions. But with that said, some resolutions are more popular than others.
As you can see, these numbers vary based on location. However, it’s still valuable information. It’s always important to know which types of devices are the most popular when it comes to the mobile app industry.
This can be extremely helpful if your target market or the majority of people using your device are located in of the countries where these percentages are high.
You also have to account for other types of screens such as:
HD screens
QHD screens
HD stands for high definition, while QHD stands for quarter high definition.
The pixel resolution for high definition screens is 1920 x 1080. Quarter high definition screens have a 960 x 540 pixel resolution.
So plan accordingly when you’re building and designing various elements of your mobile app.
For those of you planning to build an app in the future, you should be focusing more on HD screens as opposed to QHD screens.
If these trends continue, which I expect them to, QHD screens will become a thing of the past. But for now, you should still make sure your app, images, and designs can accommodate as many devices as possible.
How you can take advantage of different screen sizes
OK. So phones, tablets, and other devices have different screen sizes, resolutions, and pixels per inch. There are even different types of screens.
Now what?
As a developer, you just need to keep all of this information in mind so that your app is optimized for all of the different sizes and devices.
If you’re only building your app with one type of screen in mind, it’s going to negatively impact the user experience of other devices. Poor user experiences will hurt your bottom line, which is something you obviously want to avoid.
As a designer, you should have the freedom and flexibility to get creative with your designs and animations.
Here’s something else to keep in mind. Your app and other images still need to load flawlessly no matter how the user is holding their device.
That’s right. Besides the dimensions of their screen size and resolution, you’ll also have to make sure that there is a seamless transition between portrait and landscape mode.
Depending on the size of the screen, users are more likely to lean toward one orientation over another. Here’s some data to show you what I’m talking about.
This is interesting. As you can see, as we get to devices with screen sizes larger than 9 inches, there is a significant increase in the amount of users who use landscape mode.
So for the most part, we can assume that people prefer to use the landscape orientation on their tablets.
But with that said, you’ve still got to test your app, images, and design elements for both orientations and make sure it’s optimized for all resolutions.
Conclusion
There is a difference between screen size and screen resolution.
You’re going to use both of these numbers to help you calculate the pixels per inch (PPI) of specific devices.
This is important to know because it affects the way that you design your app. You can’t build it with just one phone, tablet, or platform in mind.
For users to have the best experience, your app needs to be fully optimized for as many devices as possible.
There’s also a difference between HD and QHD screens. Even though screen sizes are moving toward a standard resolution, app designers still need to be aware that their app will be seen on many different kinds of screens.
So for the foreseeable future, you’ll need to continue designing and testing for as many contingencies as possible.
How are the design elements of your app accommodating the various screen sizes and resolutions for users with different devices?
But there are certain factors that come into play when you’re trying to decide which tool is best for cross platform app development.
Often times, the platform that you want to build for dictates which types of tools you’ll be using. You’re going to use different tools depending on if you’re building for Apple or Android.
For example, if your app is being built strictly for the Google Play Store then you’ll use Android Studio for native app development. Whereas Xcode is used for iOS apps on Apple’s operating system.
Cross platform app development makes things much easier for developers, that way you won’t have to go through the same process twice on two separate platforms.
How do you pick the right tool for cross platform mobile apps?
There are so many different options to choose for cross platform mobile app development. It can be difficult to narrow down which ones are the best for cross platform apps.
There are four main factors that should influence your decision.
Speed Considerations
Feature Support
Framework Risk
Development Cost
You’ve got to take these elements into consideration when you’re analyzing cross platform development tools.
To help get you started, I’ve already conducted research. I used these components to help narrow down the top options available. Here are the 10 best cross platform mobile app development tools:
But in order for your app to reach everyone, it has to be accessible. So what exactly is mobile accessibility?
According to the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), it means that you’re making your mobile app more accessible to users with disabilities. This concept refers to more than just smartphones and tablets. Other devices need to be accessible, such as:
smart TVs
smart watches and other wearables
car dashboards
airplane seat back monitors
household appliances
An accessible app makes a huge difference. Take a look at how something as simple as adding captions can boost engagement.
Technology is amazing. One of the best things about the advances in mobile applications and smartphone technology is that enables people with disabilities to access the mobile world.
Plus, as more Americans grow older, there will be an increasing market for apps that take advantage of these types of assistive technology. Even basic smartphones come with these features.
But if you don’t have much experience building APIs or other web services, this may sound like an extremely daunting task. That’s why I created this guide.
I’ll explain everything you need to know about APIs. You’ll learn how to create one and understand some basic differences between the various types and options.
We’ll also go through the process of implementing a RESTful API to your mobile app.
I’ll show you which options are the best so you can make an informed decision.
I hear this question all of the time when I’m consulting with developers.
Should I be using Objective-C or Swift?
Swift vs. Objective C–It’s a common dilemma for developers. If you start asking around in the industry, you’ll hear different responses depending on who you ask.
Without paying attention to what factors go into making an awesome app, your creation is destined to sit unused on the third page of your users’ smartphone app list.
That’s OK – it happens. What’s important is that you don’t let these obstacles discourage you. Recognize that anyone who has seen success in this industry has started where you are today.
You can apply this new found knowledge later in your career to more complex and polished projects.
If you’re going to develop an app, you’re faced with a tidal wave of tough choices.
Should you design an iOS app, Android app, or both? Which one first? How often will you make updates? How will you prevent your app from becoming obsolete as technology changes?
But thankfully, there’s a new solution that’s quickly emerging as an alternative.
With it, you can develop an app that works for iOS and Android, update quickly and easily, and guarantee it will keep working as technology continues to change.
And just like running a business, there isn’t an official blueprint to follow that will show you how to be successful.
Every business venture is unique, and every mobile app development story will be slightly different from the others.
But with that said, you can still implement some of the same successful strategies that previous developers used to your own app.
Building an app is complicated, especially if you don’t learn from the lessons of those people who have come before you.
As an industry expert who has developed apps of my own as well as apps for other people, I’m very familiar with this process.
I know what it takes to be successful and what mistakes you need to steer clear from in order to avoid failure.
While there still isn’t a definitive black and white guide to building an app, I’ve narrowed down the process to seven rules that can drastically improve your chances of being successful.
Truthfully, I wish someone had given me some of these pieces of advice before I got started in this industry.
For the most part, I’ve been able to avoid any catastrophes, but there’s a handful of instances during my career where I wish I could have had a do-over.
But if you rush through the development process, it could end up costing you more money in the long run.
You don’t want to cut corners.
However, being too much of a perfectionist can stretch the development stages too long, which can bleed your pockets dry.
That’s definitely not something you want either.
So it’s important to find a middle ground between those two ends of the spectrum.
A word of warning – while you’re mileage may vary, there are always ways that you can gauge how long it will take to build your app before it launches.
I’ll go over the factors that impact your development timeline.
As an industry expert who has lots of experience building apps, I’ve narrowed down the most important elements that you need to consider to plan a realistic timetable.
After you read through this guide, you’ll have a much better idea of how long it will take to build your app.
So if you launch on the wrong platform, you could be neglecting your primary target audience.
If only there were a solution that didn’t force you to choose.
Spoiler alert – there is.
But we’ll get to that later.
For now, we’ll operate under the assumption that you’re building a native app.
In this case, you’ll have to pick between Apple and Android. But iOS and Android app development are very different.
Here’s why.
The code for native apps doesn’t work on both platforms.
If you want to have an app that’s available in both stores, you’ll need to develop two different ones from scratch in order to meet the requirements for each operations system.
It’s a long and expensive process.
Trust me, I know from experience.
But with experience also comes knowledge.
I’m here to share expertise with you so that you can make an informed decision before you dive head first into the wrong operating system.
I’ll even show you a way that allows you to launch on both platforms simultaneously.
Here’s what you need to know.
First, I’ll break down all of the factors that you need to consider before you finalize a decision between iOS and Android apps.
Feature sets
The features are related to the basic functions of your app.
What exactly is the purpose of your app?
The answer to this question will depend on the code that gets written for development.
If you’ve got a minimum of a few hundred thousand dollars to spare and up to a year of time to invest, you can probably build two native apps at the same time.
But for everyone else out there you’ll have to choose between Apple, Android, or the third (and probably most reasonable) option.
When to develop for Apple first
You’ve got to find some common connections between your customers and the behavior of Apple users.
These are some valuable pieces of information that you can use to your advantage when making this decision.
Here’s something else to consider.
95% of Apple mobile users are running their devices on iOS 10 or iOS 11, which are the two latest software versions.
You want to make sure that your app is running smoothly and fully optimized at all times.
So iOS development isn’t a bad idea for your company if you have the ability to make constant updates for your app in order to keep up with Apple’s latest software requirements.
When else is the best to develop your app for Apple first?
If you have lots of time and money.
Despite everything else we’ve just covered about iOS users and how their behavior is related to your company, that’s the reality of the situation.
Developing an app for Apple is expensive.
It’s also going to take a really long time complete the process.
Once it’s built and your app finally launches, it will continue to cost you lots of money.
Regular maintenance isn’t cheap either.
Plus you’ll need to pay for third party subscriptions, server space, and other hidden expenses associated with development and maintenance.
Large corporations can afford this, but these costs aren’t reasonable for the average person.
When to develop for Android first
As we just discussed, there are definitely some circumstances where it makes sense to develop on the iOS platform first.
Well, the same holds true for Android.
While statistically speaking, Apple users may have more money and higher education, Android users just completely dominate global web traffic from mobile devices.
So the chances are higher that you can find your target market somewhere within this group.
But saying that you can’t go wrong by developing on Android first would be an overstatement.
As I said earlier, the split between Android and Apple is closer to 50/50 in the United States.
So if you have an American business and you’re building an app to enhance the customer experience, Android won’t always be the clear winner.
But here’s a scenario when it will be.
Do you plan on using push notifications to keep users engaged?
It’s a great strategy to drive sales and increase ROI.
3.48% of Android users open push notifications, while only 1.77% of push notifications get opened on Apple devices.
Android users are also more likely to opt-in to receive additional notifications.
So if this is part of your marketing strategy when it comes to targeting users after they’ve already downloaded the app, I’d lean towards starting with Android.
Here’s something else to consider when it comes to your marketing strategy.
Before you can entice users with push notifications, you’ll need to get them to download your app in the first place.
So not only will you have a larger audience to reach, but it’s cheaper to get those people to download your app as well.
But those downloads won’t necessarily translate to money, depending on your business.
Android users are less likely to make an in-app purchase than Apple users.
So that’s not good news for ecommerce apps or for those of you who plan to offer paid apps.
However, if you have a great strategy set in place for mobile ads, developing on Android first could benefit you.
That’s the leading source of revenue for the Android platform.
Due to the points that we just talked about, it’s more expensive for you to develop a long term customer relationship on Android.
But even though that cost is higher, you have a better chance of getting more long term customers, simply because there are so much more Android users out there.
Remember earlier when we talked about how Apple users stay up to date on their operating software?
Well, here’s how Google stacks up.
Less than 20% of Android devices are running on Nougat and Oreo, which are the two latest operating systems that were released.
You will obviously still need to make changes and improvements to your app after it launches.
But you won’t need to do this in order to keep up with new regulations based on the most recent Android operating system.
You’ll just need to make sure that your app is compatible with older versions of the Android software as well.
It’s also easier for your app to get approved on the Google Play Store.
Basically, it’s a quick process that just makes sure you’re not violating any of the policies.
The approval process is automated and mainly focuses on violations such as spyware, malware, copyright infringement, and sexual content.
It’s a much more lenient approval compared to the iOS App Store.
Similar to Apple, if you’re going to develop on Android first, you need lots of time and money.
Actually, you’ll need even more money.
The Android development process costs 30% more than Apple.
It takes a long time too.
So if you’re in a financial position where you can afford to tie up the majority of your funds in development for the next year, go ahead.
But this isn’t realistic for all startups and small businesses.
There’s a third way: hybrid app
If you don’t want to go through the trouble of having to choose between Apple or Android development, building a hybrid app is the solution.
Hybrid development allows you to develop on both operating systems at the same time.
They get built using HTML5 and JavaScript on the web.
One of the best parts of a hybrid app is that it doesn’t require any complicated coding skills.
Anyone can do it.
Since you can build these without code, it’s not necessary to hire an app developer.
This cuts down on costs tremendously.
It also significantly speeds up the process.
You won’t need to wait a year to launch your app like you would through native development.
It’s all about finding the right platform to customize your hybrid app on the web.
I know that I’m a little biased, but I highly recommend BuildFire’s system.
Look at how affordable the pricing options are.
Now compare these numbers to the quotes you got from various app developer agencies.
There’s really no comparison.
What you pay for a month using BuildFire would barely cover an hour of work from a developer.
Cross platform apps are ideal for people who don’t want to choose between iOS and Android.
You can launch your app on both operating systems simultaneously without having to build two separate apps.
It’s also the best option for people who can’t reasonably afford native development costs and want their app available for users to download as fast as possible.
Final Thoughts on Android and iOS Development
So, which is the best operating system to build on first?
It depends.
There are certain scenarios that favor Apple, like if you’re targeting an American audience with higher education and a substantial annual income.
But there are circumstances where Android development makes more sense too.
Like if your target market is global and you’re planning to drive sales through ads instead of in-app purchases.
Both of these platforms have one thing in common. Mobile app development isn’t always easy.
It’s going to take a long time to develop your app, and it’s going to cost a ton of money.
Not everyone has unlimited time and funds.
That’s why hybrid apps are the solution.
Services like BuildFire can help you build your app without worrying about the operating system.
It’s less expensive, faster to build, and easier to maintain.
This will help you focus on the user experience and get more customers on both the iOS and Android platforms.
Will you develop on Apple, Android, or decide to build both simultaneously with hybrid development?
Looking to design your own iOS app, but not sure what programming language to learn?
You’ve started with the right question.
Before you can build iOS apps, you need to decide what programming language you want to code it in.
You see, not all programming languages are created equal, and the results you get are determined in large part by the framework you choose to use.
In this article, I’ll explain exactly what programming language options you have for coding iOS apps. We’ll look at the ups and downs of programming in those languages, and resources for learning them.
Finally, we’ll cover strategies you can use to skyrocket your learning speed and get your app to market in record time.
Think about your app costs. But first, we need to consider a basic question. You see, the “best” iOS programming language to learn depends entirely on the goals you’ve set forth for your app.
So let’s start there: does your app even require you to learn how to code?
How to know if you need to code your app from scratch
Start by looking at what you hope the app will accomplish. Are you looking to provide additional features for an existing business? Make a side income? Disrupt an industry?
These are all different types of apps, and they have massively different requirements for the time and expertise required.
Based on what you want to do, you can make a general estimate of the total number of hours it’ll take to develop the app.
You can expect a minimum of 300 hours of coding time for a simple app, with the average app taking around twice that.
(Remember this doesn’t include any time spent learning how to code or developing demos. It’s only the actual development process of the final app.)
Next, think about what your personal goals are for the app. There are no right or wrong answers, but you need to be honest with yourself.
Do you aspire to become an app developer, or is this a one-off project? Do you plan on designing a number of apps over the course of the next few years?
Knowing your goals will help you understand the time investment you can put into making the app a reality.
As you’ve seen, there’s a ton of time required to make a good app.
With that barrier in mind, I’d like to honestly put forth our product, BuildFire. It’s a simpler way to design apps quickly. Unlike coding, it uses a drag-and-drop interface that’s easy to use.
This isn’t just sales pitch, though. You don’t have to use our software to benefit from this advice.
Here’s the problem I see all the time. Someone has a brilliant idea for an app, and they want to get started immediately by coding it themselves.
After about a week, he or she is overwhelmed with the technology. Many give up, but those who push through spend months rewriting code they hacked out before learning it properly.
Usually, these people either give up entirely or end up outsourcing the project for thousands of dollars.
With BuildFire, you can add dozens of different types of functionalities to your app without worrying about bugs in your code or a new software update making everything obsolete.
Imagine you wanted to make a nice pasta for dinner, but instead of buying spaghetti you buy flour, eggs, and a pasta maker. Instead of a jar of sauce, you buy tomatoes and basil.
It’ll be a frustrating process to make all your ingredients from scratch. Worse, the final meal won’t be very good. You need practice and experience to make something that tastes good.
Coding an app is no different. I’ve seen too many people’s dreams die because they insist on doing everything themselves.
If you’d rather do it on your own, though, you need to understand the requirements for starting an iOS app development project.
Prerequisites to coding your first app
Before you get started with a language for coding, you’ll need to set up the right tools.
Apple has its own software for building iOS apps called Xcode. It serves as an editor for your code, as well as a debugging tool and way to preview your apps before you launch them.
Xcode is free to download, but it only runs on Mac computers, Apple platforms, and machines running on the iOS operating system. One of the most powerful modern language features of Xcode is the ability to preview your apps through the system.
Currently, there are over a dozen iOS devices available, and each one takes up less than 20% of the overall market.
This makes app development challenging because different devices have different screen sizes, resolutions and capabilities.
An app that requires a retina screen resolution, camera, or phone capabilities won’t work with every device.
With all this confusion, Xcode makes the process of app testing easier. You can simulate a variety of devices and operating systems to adjust your development accordingly.
If you’re going to be producing apps for the app store through Xcode, you’ll need to subscribe to submit apps. It will cost $99 to get started before you can sell to the app store.
You’ll also need to go through the approval process by Apple before the app becomes available to download or purchase.
This is important when you’re just starting because you’ll need to have an in-depth understanding of Apple’s complex guidelines on font usage, spacing, and other details.
Of course, you can use all kinds of different languages to code iOS apps, just like you can use a butter knife instead of a screwdriver to handle household repairs.
But by and large, they require significant workarounds that aren’t worth the effort. Let’s start with the language Apple has supported from the beginning.
Objective-C
When first developing iOS apps, Apple chose the Objective-C language. It was the primary programming language to develop iOS apps for years, and it’s still used today to build iOS apps. This is an object oriented programming language (compared to a dynamic programming language) for mobile apps.
It was licensed by Apple cofounder Steve Jobs when he founded NeXT computers in the 1980s, and he carried the language over to Apple.
Like many other programming languages like C++ and C#, Objective-C is based on the language C.
This means the basic structure and syntax is similar to C, and many of the features will be familiar to programmers who already know C.
Objective-C gives you a lot of insight into the way the technical side of programming works, and can also form a sort of bridge should you ever venture into other branches of C.
However, if you’re going to be designing an iOS app, I honestly can’t recommend starting with Objective-C.
The reason is that in 2014, Apple launched their own programming language known as Swift.
They’ve called it “Objective-C without the C,” and by all appearances prefer programmers use Swift. It’s becoming more widespread, and is the default programming language for iOS apps.
Objective-C isn’t going to disappear,bBut learning Objective-C is like learning how to build carriages at the turn of the century, when you could become an automobile mechanic instead.
Here’s the basics of Swift.
Swift
Swift is one of the most recent additions in a long line of programming languages designed to be better than the previous languages they intend on disrupting.
Swift is easier to use than Objective-C, and it’s clearly the future of iOS app development. It’s the starting place of anyone developing apps for the iPhone or iPad.
Swift boasts some large names using its code, including the Firefox and WordPress iOS apps. As the years progress, large companies will continue to transition to the new language.
It’s a good idea to stay ahead of the curve and get familiar with Swift.
One of the nicest features of Swift it its ease of use. It cleans up a lot of the technical phrasing and complicated syntax that make Objective-C intimidating for beginners.
Since Swift was designed to be easy to use, it’s been received pretty well in the development community for those very features.
If you’re going to design an app on your own, you should learn Swift as your programming language. It has the most future, the best prospects, and the full support of Apple.
But before we talk about how you can learn Swift, I’d like to mention something we’ve developed that you might find helpful.
While BuildFire comes with plenty of functionality built in, there is an infinite amount of expandability you can create for apps built with the platform.
If you want to create something truly unique and groundbreaking, look no further than the BuildFire SDK. It’s a way to add new plugins and features to your app.
This is a great way to get started form the ground up with a proven system, but enjoy a little bit of programming fun when adding more complex features to your app.
Even better, it uses JavaScript syntax, which is one of the most user-friendly languages in existence.
The BuildFire SDK is a “best of both worlds” option that will save you tons of time in the long-term.
Now that you know which language to learn, how should you get started?
The best resources for learning iOS app development
If you’re just starting out with app development, I don’t recommend learning from scratch. You’ll end up with a piecemeal learning system that lacks basic components.
It’d be like learning architecture just by looking at buildings.
You might be able to create something that looks beautiful, but without understanding the underlying principles, your creations will be worthless or even dangerous.
The same applies to coding. You need to understand how to develop apps the correct way, without leaving your code full of gaping holes and bugs a malicious user can exploit.
Here are three great resources for learning how to code iOS apps.
Treehouse functions by giving you access to thousands of videos taught by experts in each topic.
You’ll practice your knowledge in quizzes and reviews after the videos. Unlike Codecademy, it isn’t quite as immediate and direct, though you’ll still learn in an organized and systematic way.
It’s a great way to get started with what there is to learn about iOS app development in a friendly environment.
Treehouse is free for a week, then $25/month after that.
Code School works in a similar way to Treehouse, with the addition of fun challenges and gamification.
You can earn points and badges and win coding challenges. You’ll be able to interact with other users, which is another features not all coding sites have.
Code School costs $29/month, or $19/month when paid annually.
The program you decide to choose is up to you. I recommend trying out the different platforms and deciding which one fits your style best.
Speeding up the learning process
Let’s wrap things up with some principles you can use to skyrocket your learning and accomplish more in less time.
The simple fact is that if you’re going to make serious progress on your goals, you need to start learning how to program at lightning speed.
App development takes time, and you’ll need to budget in plenty of time to cover for moments when you fall behind.
In addition, remember that it’ll take up to a few weeks to just get your app approved in the Apple store, so keep that in mind when you’re looking for ways to save time.
That said, the faster you can learn how to get things done, the better.
This may sound difficult, but as long as you use to the right kinds of principles for learning faster, you can get a lot done.
First, understand that you’ll constantly be tempted to follow a series of unrelated tasks down to reach your ultimate destination, also known as yak shaving.
You by adding share buttons on your app, which requires the Facebook API, which requires rudimentary knowledge of the Facebook Opengraph, which requires metadata knowledge.
Avoid this rabbit trail of leads, and focus only on the fastest way to the functionality you need immediately.
Second, use the Pareto Principle to keep yourself focused on the most important critical tasks for your learning process.
Understand what the most important features of your app are, and focus on those. Don’t worry about exporting data to CSV if there’s no way to add data to the app yet.
Third, understand the fundamentals behind app development.
Every type of app requires a few of the basics. Learn how to set up the general framework needed for nearly every type of app, then build on that with specific knowledge.
Understanding the broad scope of app development will help you much more than learning miscellaneous pieces about different functions you may or may not ever use again.
With that in mind, you can set about learning as much as possible as quickly as possible, and get your app designed and to market with minimal hassle.
The final word on coding languages for iOS apps
In this article, you’ve learned the basics for getting started with your iOS app.
Coding an iOS app yourself, especially if you’re new to development, is tedious and time-consuming.
It can be fun if you’re casually looking to pick up an interesting hobby on the side, and it’s vital if you want a career in the world of app development.
But if you’re looking at coding as a means to an end (like bringing an app idea to life), you’ll find the process of learning to code frustrating, and you’ll almost certainly fall behind schedule.
You’ll also need to learn the background behind development. You’ll need to learn how to code, use new software, and get set up with Apple’s strict app development guidelines.
If you’re looking to bring an app idea to life quickly, I recommend looking for a simpler framework to start with.
But for those positive coding is the right option, we’ve covered the two most common languages used in coding apps: Objective-C and Swift. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages, but since Swift is the preferred language of Apple and is quickly gaining popularity, it’s the natural starting point.
To speed up the coding process, I recommend you go with an interactive training program like Codecademy, Treehouse, and Code School. Those sites will give you the skills you need, while providing direct and immediate feedback that will make your coding skills stand out more quickly.
In addition to the information related to iOS app developing, don’t overlook building mobile apps for Android. Without Android mobile apps, you’ll be neglecting a huge portion of the market. So try to learn a language that will also translate to Android app development. Look for the most versatile programming languages to build cross platform apps beyond Apple operating systems and native iOS apps.
Finally, you should look to focus on the aspects of coding most relevant to your app development.
Don’t waste time on the few aspects that aren’t really that important. To get your app to market fast, focus on the biggest features that will help create an app your users will love.
Now, get out there and design the app of your dreams!
Everyone wants to make the next great mobile application.
It can be an extremely profitable way to make some money if you know what you’re doing.
If you’ve got a great mobile app idea and decided to consult with a developer or an app development company, you may have been surprised to hear how costly it is to outsource development.
So that’s when the thought hit you, “I can just do learn to do this myself.”
I can relate.
It’s the reason why I studied code and started building mobile apps.
But where do you start?
Depending on your current situation and intentions, there are a few different routes you can go.
I’ll make sure to cover all of these scenarios throughout this complete beginner guide to mobile app development.
We’ll even cover topics like how to estimate the cost of building mobile apps.
While the development process for building mobile and web apps may sound intimidating, it’s really just like anything else. If you practice and put the time in, it will get much easier.
Plus, it helps to have some guidance from an expert in the field (that’s where I come in).
Here’s everything you need to know to become a developer and make your own apps.
So…why do you want to become a mobile app developer?
OK. So you’re probably aware of how popular mobile apps are.
Chances are, you fall somewhere within these examples. Regardless of your scenario, it’s worth noting that mobile app developers come in all different shapes and sizes. Throughout the development world, there’s a high demand for iOS and Android app development, along with development needs for multiple platforms, including hybrid mobile apps. There are Android developers who double as web developers. If you follow this path, you can learn to build a web app and Android apps simultaneously.
Let’s say you have the next big idea.
You want to take that concept and build an app to become the next Snapchat or Instagram.
If you fall into this category, I sincerely admire your ambition.
This won’t be an easy route, but if you’re successful, it could potentially be the most profitable.
In this case, you’ll need to learn how to do everything from scratch.
You’ll also want to consider how you plan to make money from your app.
Relying on paid downloads might not be your best option.
You’ll constantly conduct research and get customer feedback throughout the process.
That way you can make the necessary changes along the way to minimize any inefficiency before a large-scale release.
Using the learn startup methodology will also let you know early on if you should continue developing your app or just cut your losses and avoid major failure.
Build
Measure
Learn
If you can do these three things continuously, it’s worth it to learn how to code for your startup company.
Option #2: Use app builders
App builders are perfect for existing business owners who want to use a mobile application to enhance their company. It’s the best option if you want to launch an app fast.
You may not have the budget to pay over $200,000 for someone else to build it for you.
Learning how to code probably isn’t an option either due to the time constraints of running a company.
App builders are also ideal for entrepreneurs and freelancers who want to make some money building apps for other businesses.
Both of these scenarios require zero coding skills if you find the right app maker.
So where do you start?
Look for existing templates and examples of generic applications.
I know I’m biased (obviously) but BuildFire has tons of great templates to fit your business.
Regardless of your business type or industry, you’ll be able to find a template to get you started.
You could always design a template from scratch, but personally, I think it’s much easier to work off of an existing design.
So what space is your company in?
Ecommerce
Restaurant
Entertainment
Real Estate
Small Business
Non profit
The options go on and on.
For those of you who want to build apps for other businesses, app building tools like this give you the option to work with multiple templates all on the same platform.
It’s easy.
So you won’t need to learn how to code, you’ll just have to get good at navigating through the website and figure out what works best for your clients.
Then you can just white label the app to make money by selling it to the businesses you’re working with.
Let’s take this one step further.
What if your clients want customized features that aren’t in the generic templates?
Coming up with a unique app idea, no matter what goals you want to achieve with it, simply isn’t enough anymore – the mobile app markets is simply too competitive. It is getting harder to stand out, and the investment is large, both considering your time and budget.
Going into the mobile app development stage unprepared can result in costly, frustrating and brand-damaging mistakes.
However, if you invest your time to piece these building blocks together, you will make the development process fundamentally easier and give yourself lots of competitive advantage. It takes some effort to have a successful app, but it’s incredibly worth it.
So many app developers get too caught up in their app ideas and the big picture of a complete app, that they overlook the early stages. Forget about the day your app launches right now. You must learn how to start an app first, then you can move on to create an app and really dive deep into the app development process.
Let’s get started!
1) Deeply research your market
The first step to inform everything you do moving forward is a thorough market research. You need to know the current offering on the market and use this knowledge to find a gap your app will fill and serve a fresh, complete solution to the problem you’re solving.
Extensive market research should help you discover:
Who are your competitors?
What is their strategy?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of other app developers in this market?
What are their customers saying in the reviews and on social media?
What is their unique selling point?
When you have the answers to these questions, you will be able to avoid your competitors’ mistakes, double up on the strategies that work, and clearly define your unique take on the problem and the path to solving it. There are millions of available mobile apps, and this is your opportunity to ensure yours stands out.
Browse through the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store to see what else is out there. If few apps fit the description, it’s either good news or bad news. On the one hand, there might not be a market at all for the app. On the other hand, there could be a void in the market, opening the door for new app businesses to take advantage.
Build a profitable mobile app in less time and at a lower cost than traditional solutions with BuildFire GET STARTED WITH BUILDFIRE
2) Define your elevator pitch and target audience
Can you articulate your app’s specific purpose? Can you name its difference from your website and its specific use cases? This is probably the trickiest step for business owners and marketers. Boiling all your ideas down to one or two sentences of clear purpose is hard, but it’s also one of the core steps to ensuring the success of your app.
This is the time to define:
What will be the app’s key functionality?
Can you define what problems your app solves?
Who are the potential app users?
Why would people want to use it?
What is the added value compared to a mobile website?
Which business goals will it help you achieve?
What audience will benefit from it?
What does that audience need and crave?
Being honest when answering these questions will ensure you don’t waste resources on redundant app features or targeting the wrong groups of people.
If you can’t clearly articulate the situation where your app solves a problem, there might not be an app business to pursue here. App ideas are useless if they don’t solve problems for real app users.
By now, you should also be confident about your elevator pitch. If you accidentally found yourself in front of a potential investor and they asked you about your project, how would you convey your mission in only a couple of sentences in less than a minute? Again, strong focus and clarity this early in the process can amplify your success in so many ways, so don’t miss your opportunity to be precise and clear with your app’s purpose early on.
3) Choose between native, hybrid and web app
There are a couple of technical decision to make early on, and this is a crucial one. Choosing between native, hybrid, or a web app carries many implications for your later development and maintenance. This is why it’s key to leverage your market research and the core purpose and functionality you’ve just defined, so you can make the best decision.
The core differentiations between native, hybrid and mobile apps are:
The programming languages they are built in. This affects and depends on your budget, desired time frames, and available expertise.
Access to native device APIs. This will depend on the device’s functionalities that you want your app to access.
Distribution method. This will largely affect the way you market your app and define your promotion strategies.
Multi-platform support. This will be based on your target audience and the market you want to penetrate; most often, you will want to be present both on Apple’s App store and Android’s Play store.
Native apps are perfect for heavy-duty tasks such as gaming or the use of photos or videos. On the other hand, web apps are best for solutions that require easy updates, but don’t require any access to device’s native abilities.
These two types sit on the opposite sides of the spectrum, with native apps being most expensive to develop and findable in different app stores, while web apps are quite quick and low-cost to develop, but you can’t amplify them through app stores or have your users download them to their device.
The best of both worlds are hybrid apps: they use the same code base for both platforms, they can access device’s features and they live in both app stores. In short, you can build an iOS app and Android apps simultaneously with a single build. They are also an ideal choice for most app goals and purposes, including productivity, utility and enterprise apps.
Once you’ve decided on your app type, you will much more easily allocate your resources and plan your entire development project.
4) Know your monetization options
An app can play many different roles for your business and your bottom line. Generating revenue directly off the app is an obvious one, while others may simply be serving as a resource for your audience, or indirectly assisting other phases of your sales funnel and increase your brand’s reach.
What role do you want your app to play in your business model? If you are planning to make money directly from your app, this is the time to look at the app monetization models:
Freemium apps – These apps are free to download, but certain features and contents are locked, and they can only be accessed through a purchase.
Paid (premium) apps – The user needs to purchase the app from the app store in order to use it. Because of the cost barrier of this model, a mobile marketing strategy is critical to demonstrate the unique, superior value compared to the free apps.
In-app purchases – This model works by using the app to sell digital or physical products as a mobile commerce sales channel.
Subscriptions – This model is similar to freemium apps, but brings a benefit of a recurring stream of revenue.
In-app ads – This is possibly the simplest model of all because there is no cost barrier for the user. As with any advertising space, it’s important to never sacrifice user experience in order to gain more ad space.
Sponsorships – This model usually becomes possible when you achieve a solid user base, as it allows you to partner with specific brands and advertisers. It is a win-win situation because brands pay for user actions, and your app generates further engagement for the user.
As with any other choice, each path as benefits and disadvantages. While your decision now can be changed later, it’s important you gain a solid understanding of all the models first, and steer your mobile app development based on what aligns with your business best.
5) Build your app marketing strategy and pre-launch buzz
If there is an element that so heavily affects your app’s success, it’s the preparation to market and amplify it, including your branding, PR, pre-launch efforts, outreach, and simply overall web presence.
Now, you might think it’s too early to think about app marketing before you’ve even begun your development. However, your efforts will multiply in the long run if you start creating the buzz around your app before it’s in the app stores.
This is the right time to start with the following:
Define your branding. How will your name, colors, logo and the tone of your content set you apart from the millions of other apps and businesses? Ensure consistency of all these across your app and all platforms you exist on.
Find your channels. Where does your target audience mostly hang out? Are they easier to reach through social media or email? Do they prefer video over written content? How much time are they spending on their mobile device?
Create content. Based on your answers in the previous point, you should now know what content your audience craves and where to reach them. Start mapping out your written and/or video content and sharing it on selected channels.
Kick off your outreach. What people are influencers in your industry, both small and large? Put some effort into reaching out to them in a personalized manner and provide them lots of value for putting your app in front of their audiences.
You can even create an app landing page that you’ll ultimately use to drive app installs and promote all the features. Even if you just have the app title right, it’s worth it to get this page build. Some of you might even take the app’s graphic design concept to create some nice visuals for the landing page. All of this will improve your app marketing strategy.
These steps will make promotion easier when the launch time comes, and you will have a warm community to launch for.
Build a profitable mobile app in less time and at a lower cost than traditional solutions with BuildFire GET STARTED WITH BUILDFIRE
6) Plan for app store optimization
Many steps you’ve done so far, including your market research, your app’s unique purpose and your marketing strategy, largely affect your app store optimization strategy. This is the key to discoverability in the app store; over 60 percent of all apps are found through this organic search.
It’s important to respect both app stores’ requirements and best practices, and use this as a brilliant opportunity for your app to shine with its visuals, features and distinctive purpose.
While you won’t be able to complete all the ASO tasks this early in the process (nor should you), this is an ideal time to start sketching out your final app store look and feel, and ensure that the development follows your ideas.
The key elements for app store optimization are:
App name: it should easy to spell and pronounce, unique, and descriptive, fitting within the length limits (50 characters for iOS, 30 for Android)
Keywords: this is only applicable to Apple, and it’s an extra space to specify the search terms relevant to your app for the app meta data
Icon: use a clear color palette, avoid using lots of small details, and opt in for contrasting colors and a simple, clear concept
Screenshots: make sure to use all five screenshots and to leverage caption texts to tell a story and highlight benefits, including the app design
Description: focus on the first three lines (before the ‘More…’ link) to clearly convey the key points, use bullet lists, and have a call to action
Preview video: it should be short and go straight to the point, with a clear and universal message that will work in any localization. You can create YouTube videos and repurpose the content for ASO as well
You’ll need different an app store connect account and developer account to manage your ASO. Things like your app icon and user feedback can also play a role in how the app market perceives your app project. Early adopters have a big impact on the long-term success of your iOS apps and Android app. Getting this right will make it easier for you to offer in app purchases from actual users.
7) Know your resources
Ideally, you’ll be able to announce your launch date ahead to create the buzz around your launch and make people excitedly wait for it.
For this to happen, you need to be aware of the development time frame in front of you. According to Kinvey’s report, most businesses need between 7 months up to over a year to develop and deploy a mobile app.
This is why you need to start conversations with your developers and technical teams as early as possible. This will help you guide your entire project more effectively and allocate appropriate due dates to various planning and development stages, including:
Use case(s) definition
Mapping of required functionalities
Minimum viable product (MVP)
Wireframing
Programming language/platform selection
Coding
App design
App analytics
Testing
You should also think about the way you’re going to make an app. Will you hire an app developer? Or will you use an app builder to make your own app?
These early decisions in the app making process will have a significant impact on your app business and development process over time. With an app builder, you don’t necessarily need to learn iOS development to make an iPhone app for the iOS app store. You don’t need to learn software development for Android apps either.
This is the best time to also revise your budget. Depending on app’s complexity, features, infrastructure and many other factors, the full app development price can vary between under $10,000 for simple iPad apps all the way to six-figure budgets for a more complex, full spec app. Keep in mind this will also vary between different agencies and developers based on agency size, expertise, required and available time frame, and more.
Another costly factor is the ongoing support of the app. It will require continuous monitoring, crash logs review, optimizing for user experience based on comments, and keeping up to date with the operating system updates.
Knowing what resources you’re working with early on will prevent any emergencies and delays further down the line.
8) Ensure security measures
And finally, you must include a privacy policy in case your app will collect any sensitive information from users. This policy needs to cover what information is being collected and how is it used.
Lots of app developers are so focused on their own apps and the app idea itself that they neglect crucial security features. But security is an important step whenever you make an app or start a new app project.
The benefit of taking this step so early is to give yourself plenty of time to get any legal consulting you may need, as well as plan and implement safety measures within the app.
The security of your app is one of its key points, and you must ensure it is being built early in app development. Your users’ data is your most valuable asset, and you should ensure you have processes in place to collect, handle and store this data, as well as to manage any potential security risks.
Final thoughts on how to start an app
How to start an app? There’s no single answer to this question.
The app idea alone won’t be enough here. You need to take the right steps early to ensure success for the long run. So before you start thinking about new features and app updates, take a few hours to focus on how users interact with your app. Close your eyes and think of the user interface on a well-designed native app.
How will they access an in app purchase? Think about taking your app idea and getting it ready for launch on the app store. It all starts with preparation.
Once you go through these preparation steps, you will be ready to dive into your app development without distractions and lead it to a successful app deployment and launch!
Even though you may already have a perception of how the app will look like, there is a crucial step early in the planning process that will make all the difference later – wireframing.
In mobile app development, wireframing is a schematic blueprint; a visual guide that represents the app layout, the flow between the screens and its functional representation informed by your business objective.
A mobile app wireframe lets you explore your thought process, navigation and utility of an app with the benefit of simplicity. It bridges the gap between your initial, raw thoughts and a final product before any coding begins.
There are many advantages to wireframing:
You can pencil it on paper or use some of many available online tools like Fluid UI
It is quick and easy to create and change, potentially saving you hundreds of development hours
Wireframing helps you visualize a full app experience without the distractions of visual design and graphic elements. This allows for a deeper exploration of multiple layout ideas, concepts, and workflows, leading to a process of building a fully functional, intuitive and user-friendly mobile app.
While you may want to skip wireframing and jump straight into development, don’t do it! Wireframing will help you avoid many unanticipated obstacles and perhaps save you thousands of dollars in engineering costs later.
Plus, in a world where you can build an app in minutes, you really have no excuse not to create one.
However, there are so many mobile app development tools out there today it can make your head spin. How do you know which one to use? How do you avoid paying too much for tools you simply don’t need? Do you need to become a developer to use them?
Don’t worry – I have you covered. In this post, I’ll give you a detailed comparison of the best mobile app dev tools and which ones are right for your app and budget.
Before we talk mobile app dev tools, we need to understand what a mobile application really is.
A mobile application, commonly referred to as an app, is a type of application software designed to run on a mobile device, such as a smartphone or tablet.
Mobile applications provide users with similar services to those accessed on PCs, such as online banking, accessing email, or viewing their calendar. Apps are usually small software with limited function, designed for a very specific purpose.
Mobile applications are also sometimes referred to as Web apps (although they aren’t actually the same thing), online apps, iPhone apps or smartphone apps.
I asked Michael Facemire, an app developer for Forrester Research, what his take on mobile application development tools was. He had this to say:
“Mobile app dev tools are like paint brushes for an artist – they all come down to personal preference. Personally, I use some of the most well-known, like Android Studio, because they help me develop apps quickly.”
Now that you understand exactly what a mobile app is, what are the best tools to develop a mobile application? Let’s find out:
Mobile App Development Tools That Are Open Source
Open source mobile application development tools can be a boon to mobile app developers due to their free (and, obviously, open source) nature.
“I’m a big believer in prototyping and early validation. Before diving into development, I highly recommend sketching your app idea on the paper and iterating it until your target audience gets it. Prototyping on Paper is a great choice that can save you hours of development work later. If you set clear goals, you can go from idea to functioning prototype in one day.”
The setback of open source, however, often includes a steeper learning curve than some of their paid counterparts. If you have the time to learn them, it may be worth saving the extra dollars.
Here are some open source mobile app dev tools you can choose from:
BuildFire.js is a cross platform library used to build custom functionality in BuildFire’s platform. It allows unlimited customization with nothing but JavaScript, making it one of the simplest to implement frameworks. Leveraging the existing functionality of the BuildFire platform BuildFire.js gives mobile app developers the ability to shortcut 80% of the app development process by leveraging any of the 45+ open source plugins that exist and simply focus on the custom functionality that is required. Read more here.
Framework 7 used to be iOS only, but now offers Android support as well. If you want to develop an app that looks and feels like a clean iOS app even on Android, Framework 7 is for you.
It’s also very easy to understand, as long as you already have a decent knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Some of the features of Framework 7 include Material Design UI, a custom DOM library, 1:1 page animation, native scrolling, and XHR caching and preloading.
The Ionic Framework is based on the Sass CSS language. It’s also cross-platform, meaning it can run on multiple operating systems. It’s pretty easy to use and can also be integrated with AngularJS to build more advanced apps.
Ionic also has a library of mobile-optimized HTML, CSS, and JS CSS components, tools and gestures, and works with predefined components. A command-line interface provides features like logging, emulators, and live reload.
We use Ionic and Apache Cordova to power our iPhone/Android mobile apps. Basically, Ionic handles all the UI components to make the app feel and look like a real iPhone app or real Android app, but it’s actually all built with HTML/CSS/JS (Angular). Apache Cordova is the layer that’s exposed to developers to interact with the native phone APIs (e.g. to trigger a sound, vibrate command, etc.) in a generic way that works with multiple platforms.
When we initially built our apps, we started with iPhone and it took nearly three months to build, but when we did Android, it took only nine days and shared virtually all of the exact same code!
From a programming perspective, we didn’t need to hire developers with specialized mobile skillsets; it was very easy to use a web developer to build both apps. They have significant backing (so you don’t have to worry about them shutting down) and their documentation is great.
Over half of all mobile websites are currently using jQuery mobile. It’s one of the oldest app dev tools out there, and has more functionality than most. It’s been called the “swiss army knife of mobile app dev tools”.
While jQuery brings all the well known JavaScript features to the table, the ‘Mobile’ part of the upgrade is mostly responsible for CSS and HTML. While it lacks native-like functionality or advanced UI, it makes up for this by being as close as possible to the “write once, run everywhere” dream.
Cross Platform & Hybrid Mobile App Development Tools
There may be times when you need cross platform support with the speed of hybrid development so you can support multiple mobile platforms without developing multiple code bases.
But, before we get into them, Jason Kneen, a freelance cross-platform native app developer at BouncingFish, has some advice:
“For the past 6 years I’ve been working with Appcelerator’s Titanium SDK, building native cross-platform app development for iOS, Android and Windows.
Titanium was the first development platform that enabled developers to build native applications in JavaScript.
The Alloy MVC framework is great; I find I can build MVPs and full-blown apps quickly and share over 90% of the code between iOS and other platforms.
For me, the choice is native over hybrid apps (where the app is basically a local website running in a native wrapper).
With the Appcelerator Platform, they’ve added Hyperloop (the ability to access 100% of the underlying SDK from JavaScript), and the Arrow Cloud Services and ArrowDB, making it easy to create and deploy scalable and flexible API services.
All this plus being able to share over 90% of your code means you can go from zero to app faster, with less code, using fewer developers – making it cost-effective.”
Here’s a list of cross platform supporting hybrid mobile app development tools to choose from:
BuildFire is one of few high performance do-it-yourself mobile app builders that supports Android and iOS phones as well as tablets. BuildFire can shorten the time to launch by months or even years with pre-built functionality in the form of:
Mobile angular UI is a free hybrid mobile app development tool which allows you to build HTML5 Mobile Apps with Bootstrap and Angular JS. It’s very similar to Sencha Touch and jQuery Mobile.
It also provides switches, overlays, sidebars, scrollable areas, and absolute positioned top and bottom navbars that don’t bounce on scroll, and makes for easy mobile to desktop and back transition. The only drawback is the documentation isn’t quite up to par, but they’re working on updating it.
If you’re a Salesforce developer, Salesforce1 is for you. Regardless of your skill level, you should be able to find good options for building mobile apps based on your Salesforce site. It’s easily customizable with just a few clicks.
Xamarin is a Microsoft-owned software company. With C# codebase, you can develop Android, iOS and Windows apps. One of Xamarin’s best features is that it allows code sharing in multiple platforms (aka cross platform mobile app development). Xamarin also has a cloud service, which allows you to test on any number of mobile devices.
Mag+ is a nifty app SDK which allows developers to build on top of their core components, saving loads of hours of coding. They also have an iPad app which provides a fast and simple publishing platform for creating mobile-optimized content, no code required.
Xojo is an app development tool for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, x86 Linux, iOS, Raspberry Pi, and the web. They also allow you to create native apps and provide Xojo Cloud for easy, secure, and maintenance-free web app hosting.
Corona Labs supports all major platforms, including Android, iOS, and Windows. While their app dev tool is specially made for building 2D graphics games and educational apps, it can also be used for developing other 2D apps.
The price of Corona Labs is $79 to $199 per month, although they do have a free version.
Cocos2D is another 2D app builder that allows you to publish from a single code base to mobile, desktop, web, and console. You can also write in cocos2d-objc, cocos2d-x (which uses C++), cocos2d-JS (which uses JavaScript), cocos2d-XNA (which uses C#), cocos2d- swift (which uses objective C), and more.
Unity is one of the most well-known game development platforms. You can use it to build high-quality 3D and 2D games, deploy them across multiple platforms, and even build AR/VR apps!
GameSalad revolutionized learning through applied game development. You can craft your own mobile games with a drag and drop visual editor. It’s built to help graphic designers, animators, and game developers quickly prototype, build and self-publish cross-platform games and interactive media.
Cordova allows you to write a single code base using HTML and JavaScript to be used to create apps for multiple platforms including: for Android, iOS, Windows, Blackberry, Firefox, LG WebOS and FireOS. All from a single code base wrapped into an app container. Cordova has multiple tools to help with development including PhoneGap, Ionic, Onsen UI and more.
Kendo UI works in HTML5 or JavaScript, and is available in open-source or commercial versions (The commercial version starts at $999 one-time fee). The tool boasts tons of prebuilt themes with Material Design styling, as well as a theme builder for custom themes.
It also offers a wide selection of UI widgets and plugins, Angular and Bootstrap UI integrations, and performance optimizations. The only downfall is the complexity of the tool – it’s not quite as easy to learn as some of the others mentioned here.
Unlike others on this list, Appcelerator uses JavaScript to create native code, with claimed benefits in performance. It offers over 5,000 APIs for iOS, Android, Windows, Blackberry, and HTML5.
If you’re looking for performance and loads of features, Appcelerator is for you. It’s not the easiest tool to learn, but you’ll get plenty out of it once you do.
Sencha is another mature platform available for free in open source or as a commercial version (which starts at $9,475 for 5 developers). With Sencha, you can prototype and develop, theme, code and debug, as well as test your web applications on any browser and on any device.
Sencha uses tools like Ext JS Stencils to enable native-like performance and make creating apps quick and easy. However, some have felt Sencha lacks in the support department.
React Native is a fairly new and emerging open source framework from Facebook that promises a “learn once, write everywhere” experience, using JavaScript as it’s main code. It enables quick prototyping and a very high initial velocity. Its basic features are also fairly easy to learn and implement.
It can also be extended with native code and native views. However, JavaScript code isn’t as efficient for calculation-intensive tasks and there’s an overhead when JavaScript is controlling native elements.
Dropsource was built for developers to easily design, build, and launch iOS and Android apps right from the web browser. They use drag and drop features and allow you to connect apps with any RESTful API. They use automated programming to generate clean and concise source code for you.
Right now, you can get Dropsource for free until they are out of beta. Once they launch, the price will be $20 to $75 per month.
Native Mobile App Development Tools
Native mobile apps are created specifically to interact with a single operating system. Because they work with that system, they can take advantage of the software and features built into that platform. Here are some native mobile app dev tools:
Pedro Piñera, an iOS developer for Soundcloud, gave us some infight on his personal favorite native app development tools:
“When it comes to developing a mobile app, I like the following tools:
Fastlane: It’s very useful to automate tasks. You set up a list of actions and anyone in your team can run these tasks from the console. It’s also very handy on CI because you can run these tasks and deploy the application directly from there.
CocoaPods: It’s the most popular dependency manager on iOS. Most of iOS projects use it for fetching external dependencies and integrating them into their projects.
Screenhero: You can do pair programming even being remote thanks to this tool. You can share the screen with another person and you’ll be able to control it with two cursors and keyboards.
Sip: It’s a color picker that integrates with MacOS on the status bar. If you want to get a color and the representation in your favorite programming language you can just open the tool, click the color, and you’ll get the values copied to the pasteboard.
Zeplin: Very useful tool to use across designers and developers. Designers can share the designs with you by using this tool and developers can explore the designs online, get colors, fonts, sizes… without having to ask the designer.”
Mobile App Development Tools To Download Free
I’ve already mentioned you can get various open source tools for free, but here are three additional options:
If you’re building an app for Android, you can use Android’s built-in developer kit for free as well.
Rapid Mobile App Development Tools
Rapid mobile app development (RMAD) tools allow you to create an app without the use of code, very quickly.
Typically, RMAD is used to develop apps that are “good enough” to perform their function – they may not be as pretty or have any extra fancy features as a professionally coded app, but they do enough to get by.
If you’re looking to get an app developed cheaply and quickly, RMAD is for you. Here are some of the best rapid mobile app development tools I’ve found:
Alpha Anywhere is a database-oriented, RMAD tool that excels at creating hybrid mobile apps that work offline (allowing you to work on them on the go). It allows you to build good apps quickly, with strong performance and a native-like look and feel. What more could you want?
The price of Alpha Anywhere is $1,499 per year.
Mobile App Development Tools For Android
Don’t worry – if you just need a mobile app development tool for Android, we’ve got the best of those too:
Eclipse is a free open source Android developer tool and IDE. However, it also boasts an active forum and collaborative working groups to help you, should you encounter an issue you can’t fix.
IntelliJDEA’s goal is to make development an enjoyable experience. They have features like in-depth coding assistance, quick navigation, clever error analysis, and refactorings.
While mentioned above, I also placed Corona Labs here because it’s an excellent tool for developing Android apps and games.
Mobile App Development tools With No Coding Needed
If you don’t know code, you can still develop a mobile app! There are more and more drag-and-drop builders being created every single day. Here are our favorites:
Corona Labs is also excellent for designing windows mobile apps, as mentioned above.
The Bottom Line
The mobile app market is flooded tools to create mobile apps. There are mobile app tools for Android app development, web technologies, cross platform apps, progressive web apps, and more. If you run a quick Google search, you’ll quickly learn that there are more mobile app development tools out today than you can even count. They vary in price, complexity, usability, and a million other ways.
I hope you’ve found a great app development tool for your business somewhere in this guide. That said, sometimes developing an app – even using a simple drag-and-drop editor – can still be too time-consuming or too confusing.
Once your app is built, don’t forget to focus on promotional strategies like creating a unique app icon.
You’ve delivered your sermon for the day, things are wrapping up and your congregation is flowing out the church doors. The pews were filled, but what about tomorrow or next week?
How will you make sure your congregation is actively engaged from the youngest members to the oldest?
An app can help. By creating a digital center for your community, you can effectively bring the church to your congregation. Effectively engaging those younger members who live on their smart phones. You’re engaging with them where they are, 24/7/365 right in their pockets.
At their finger tips they’ll have access to sermons, event calendars, to donate and more. In this guide, you’ll be walked through the process of building a simple and easy-to-use church app for your congregation, using the BuildFire mobile app building platform. We’ll be walking you through the church app template, Cross Church, as an example of what a church app should look like.
Church, synagogue, mosque or other prayer building – a mobile app is the perfect communication medium to engage your community. Engagement both inside and outside of church is one of the most important factors in growing an active congregation. This engagement can start before they even step in the front door through their mobile device.
Branding Your App
Let’s start with your mobile app’s appearance. The way your church app looks, should be in line with the way your congregation knows your church. What colors are in your logo and in your church?
What emotions do you want congregation members to feel when they experience sermons in your app?
When you have the answers to these questions, then it’s time to move over to the Appearance section of your control panel.
The Appearance section is where you can control the look and feel of your mobile app to fit with the experience you’re after.
The Font section is where you can control the font used across your app.
If you don’t see a font that fits for your church, you can contact our support at any time by clicking the little question mark bubble in the bottom right corner.
The section below Font is the Theme Colors section. This is where you can manually select colors for each section of your mobile app. Changing these colors will change the colors shown in the emulator on the right hand side.
The alternative option is to choose a Preset Theme if the color scheme matches what you are looking for with regards to your app’s aesthetics.
Plugins
Plugins are the main features and sections of your app that will contain content. BuildFire has dozens to choose from and if you’re using the Cross Church template, there are already several pre-loaded plugins to use.
If you’d like to explore the plugins available or add a new one, you simply have to go to the Plugin section and click on Add Plugin.
Then you can explore the plugins available or add a plugin by clicking the Add button.
After you have added your new plugin, you can add it to your app by going to the Home Plugin, or your Side Menu, clicking on “Add Plugin Instance,” and selecting the new plugin.
Now let’s review the default plugins that appear in the Cross Church app template. These are the most useful for any church.
This Week
This Week is a Folder plugin. You can tell what plugin you are in at the moment by looking at the top title. This folder is used to collect information on what’s new for this week: new sermons, events, membership orientation information and more.
If you click on Today’s Sermon Notes for instance, you’ll be taken to a Text WYSIWYG Plugin that can contain text, images and links to house sermons.
On this next page you can change the name of the sermon if it has a title, change the image or change the sermon based on the new sermon for today.
Changes made on the plugin pages are saved automatically, you’ll notice a green notification at the top of your screen when it’s in the process of saving.
Sermons
Next up is the Sermons feature, which is a Folder Plugin. It contains multiple types of Plugins to keep an archive of past sermons for congregation reference.
Plugins Contained:
Text WYSIWYG: Similar to the daily sermon, it’s just a plugin that displays text, links and images
Media Center Manual: A plugin that acts as a folder for multiple types of media including video and audio versions of sermons
Vimeo: A plugin that aggregates Vimeo videos specifically for video based sermons
Each sermon within the Media Center Plugin contains text as well as links to an audio file, a video file or both. In this case it links to a direct MP3 audio file and a YouTube video.
Donate
Give you congregation a new way to give back with a direct link to give or donate right from the app. The Donate Plugin is a Folder Plugin that holds a direct link to your donations page. That way you can accept donations from the younger members of your congregation where they are most often.
The image here links to a WebView Plugin, a type of plugin that allows you to link out to other pages or websites on the internet. To use this plugin as a donation medium for your congregation, you’ll just have to add your donation URL and set it to open in the mobile phone’s default browser. This is for compliance with Apple’s app store rules around payments within an application.
You could also use this area to link to a page on your church’s website with information around how you accept donations. In that case you can select Native in app and have the page load within your church’s mobile app.
Home Groups
Home Groups is a Places Plugin, it’s where you can collect a different location information for your church events, groups and regular mass. Much like other plugins the Places Plugin allows you to have images at the top and text or links in the middle. Below that is the Places Plugin specific settings.
1. The first is where you can add location section and location items in bulk via CSV. If you click on the Get Template button here you can download a sample file to work with.
2. This is the location sections area, these location sections hold multiple locations items (addresses). For your church they can hold locations and addresses relevant to different age groups within your congregation.
If we click into Home Groups in the locations section, you’ll notice it’s blank. At the moment there are no locations added to any of the location sections, so let’s add one. To do that you can click on the Add New Item button.
To start you can add a list image by clicking the empty square beside List Image, and fill out the Item Title and Summary section. Under those options you can add content to the body of the location page as well as input the address information.
When you’ve filled out the entire location page you can click done and it will direct you back to the Home Groups settings page. From here you can see the list of locations you’ve added and even your distance to that location. It works best if you have multiple locations and want them to go to the nearest one.
Bible
The Bible section is just as to the point as it sounds. It is a WebView plugin that is linked to www.bible.com by default with the Native in app selection on. That means it appears as if it’s embedded directly in your church’s mobile app.
This can easily be switched to any other religious text, you just have to change the URL to what you’d like to display.
Prayer Wall
The Prayer Wall uses our Social Wall Plugin to allow communication amongst your congregation through your church’s mobile app. By giving them a space to talk in the app, you’ve created a space for feedback and discussion in a controlled environment.
You can also create more than one Social Wall Plugin for multiple purposes. The Prayer Wall is one example that is relevant across your entire congregation, but you could also have a Social Wall for youth groups or specific events.
You’ll notice when you click into the Prayer Wall Plugin is quite empty. Once your app is published, and members of your congregation are using it, you’ll see it fill up in no time.
Devotionals
The Devotionals Plugin uses our Media Center RSS Feed Plugin, this takes information from a blog feed or RSS feed and pulls it into the mobile app.
In this case it’s taking daily devotionals from www.adevotion.org and pulling that daily devotional into the app.
If you want to use your own website’s feed of devotionals, you can edit the RSS URL field and put your website’s feed in there. When you click the Validate button it will update in the emulator with the new information.
You can also edit the image or the content that shows just below the image to reflect the message you want to compliment your daily readings.
Events
The Events Plugin is a Folder Plugin containing another Folder Plugin as well as two Event Feed Plugins.
The Announcements folder plugin contains updates related to events your church is holding. This can be used to get across specific information relating to the event (parking details, contact details and so on).
The General Calendar and Youth Calendar plugin instances are event feeds, meaning they are iCal calendar files containing calendar invitations for events.
The default is an example from Berkeley that shows multiple events in the emulator. Each event can be clicked on to reveal more information from that event’s description.
To add a new calendar feed, you just need the .ics iCal file URL that goes into the field labeled Enter iCal Feed. You then click Validate and if the file is correct, it will update the event feed.
About Us
People have a curious nature. The About Us Plugin aims to fulfil that curious nature by telling them about your church and the key members they should know. It’s a great way to help new members remember names, remember the church location and find contact information.
Social Media
The Social Media plugin is for linking to your church’s social profiles across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social networks. All you have to do to add a new social network profile is click the Add Plugin Instance button in the Social Media Plugin. That will allow you to add one of our other social media plugins to your app.
Other Media
Other Media is another Folder plugin to place any audio files, videos, articles or any other type of media you have that you’d like to share with your congregation. It’s a great place to hold church event images as well to engage your congregation.
Analytics
In the BuildFire platform we help you track the most essential metrics: app downloads and registered users. To help you boost your mobile app downloads, we compiled a list of 10 powerful strategies to help you here.
In addition to the analytics we provide, we also integrate with a platform called Segment. Segment is an all in one way to connect multiple analytics tools like Google Analytics, Marketo, Intercom and more. These tools will help you in tracking more advanced metrics like which plugins are most used and the behavior patterns of your congregation members in your church’s app.
Notifications
The last important area of the platform is the Notification section. In the Notifications section you can send push notifications through your app to your congregation’s members. This will help you keep in touch with your members 24/7/365 right in their pockets. You can even create groups, which will allow you to have specific segments within your congregation. For example, you may have a youth segment that gets notifications for youth related events on a weekly basis.
Conclusion
Now when you finish for the day, when the pews are empty, you can still keep connected to your congregation right from your church app. You can update the app to show your members tomorrow’s sermon, catch up on the discussions on your Social Wall and know that from young to old – your members are engaged with your church.
Walkthrough Video
If you want to walk through building a church app step-by-step, we put together video!
Customized Mobile App Solutions Now Within Everybody’s Reach
Custom mobile app development is expensive, time consuming and, until now, reserved for those engineering firms capable of tackling projects of $150K to $3M or more. These same high costs put custom solutions out of reach for all but the largest of enterprises. So what about the 30M small to medium size (S2M) businesses, those with small IT departments or budgets of $5K to $75K; how can their custom app needs be met? Until now, they couldn’t.
BuildFire changes all that by enabling a whole new set of players to develop custom app solutions, and do so, at a price point that is within reach of the smallest of entities.
BuildFire has opened the source code on its market leading DIY platform and created a new development portal (BuildFire.js) enabling endless customization using nothing but javascript …. gone is the need to master complex programming languages. Now marketing firms, web developers, small development firms, small IT departments, etc. can provide custom app solutions at an affordable price point.
BuildFire provides developers with a powerful suite of out-of-the-box open source functionality (Plugins) combined with an SDK to fork, enhance and resubmit these plugins or create entirely new functionality. No need to reinvent the wheel; build on what BuildFire and others have done before you. For S2M businesses, existing BuildFire features and functionality generally meet 80% to 90% of most mobile app requirements. Where the intricacies and nuances of a unique situation require custom features, BuildFire’s open source code and SDK help finish the job. In most cases, a BuildFire solution will cost a fraction of the cost of custom app development as well as reducing development time from months to weeks.
BuildFire also significantly reduces legacy customer support headaches. BuildFire comes complete with an intuitive user dashboards that makes app updating as easy as “point and click”. In many ways, the BuildFire solution supersedes the expensive custom development alternative. With BuildFire, neither the developer nor their clients need staff to handle ongoing app support, data storage, hosting, updates, maintenance, re-submission, etc. All these legacy costs are covered with a BuildFire subscription. Focus on providing custom solutions and let BuildFire do the rest.
So what is the catch; how much does all this cost?
Good news … There is no cost to develop on BuildFire.js. That’s right, 100% free, no gimmicks. Simply access the SDK by signing up for a free developer account. With an MIT open source license anyone is permitted fork, enhance and resubmit custom plugins or even sell the enhancements to third parties freely. You will need a BuildFire subscription when the app is ready to publish in the apps stores. A buildfire subscription covers hosting, updates, app store submission, maintenance, data store, etc.
With the BuildFire.js developer tool kit, mobile app development is no longer limited to the larger engineering firms. BuildFire.js has enabled the smaller firms and IT departments to create robust and highly complex mobile app solutions quickly and cost effectively.
Soon BuildFire will be opening a marketplace where developers can sell their custom plugins. Become a “Certified Development Partner” and participate in BuildFire’s referral network, assisting in the fulfillment of incoming custom development requests.
For those firms looking for custom branding, BuildFire also offers a White Label solution.
BuildFire Plugins
Over 45+ Plugins are currently available. With many more constantly being released there is no shortage of features. Here are some of the more popular plugins:
– Social Wall
– WebView
– Contact Us
– Loyalty
– Places
– People
– Text/WYSIWYG
– Events feed
– Events manual
– FaceBook
– Twitter
– Grid Layout Launcher
– Media Center
– YouTube
– Vimeo
– Open Table
– Shopify
– PlaceBag
– Instagram
– Woo Commerce
– TypeForms
– Google Slides, Forms, Docs, sheets
– Share App
– Soundcloud
– PDF Viewer
– JotForms
– You Can Book Me
– Audio Media Player
– Seminar, sermon and lecture notes
– BlueTooth
With a rich and growing list of plugins, BuildFire enables you to provide more for less. Many of the “nice to have” features that are often sacrificed for time and cost considerations already exist free within the BuildFire platform.
BuildFire.js SDK
Plugins are developed under the BuildFire SDK using BuildFire.js. Using nothing but javascript and the BuildFire framework you can enhance existing plugins or develop entirely new plugins. Because of the light weight framework and flexible architecture developers can utilize any other client-side javascript framework including, but not limited to:
– JQuery
– Angular
– React
– Underscore
– Knockout
Within the SDK BuildFire provides comprehensive api documentation.
BuildFire.js Services
Alongside the open source plugins BuildFire has released a plethora of services to support developers. With the closing of mobile service provider Parse there has been a vacuum that BuildFire quickly filled.
“While we want developers to be able to quickly and easily integrate with other systems. We wanted them to also have everything they need to develop a robust and comprehensive plugin without foreign dependencies.”
Daniel Hindi (BuildFire CTO)
Services like:
Datastore: hosts all your data with versioning and publishing capabilities eliminating the need to have your own database server
Auth: eliminates the need to build your own authentication service. BuildFire provides both a custom registration as well as Facebook and Twitter authentication options
Analytics: with this service both the developer and app owner can gather all the events and data points needed to analyze performance without the need to provide their own analytics server
User Data: provides a service to save user information remotely without the need of a third party api server
Image Library: Image server with resizing and caching
Many more…
Integrations
BuildFire.js increases the developer toolset further with Piping Streams, enabling developers to pipe data into third party services. Some of these integrations include but not limited to:
Get started …… Test drive the BuildFire.js platform. Build an App. Start your own custom app development business. Hone your Java script, JQuery, Angular, React, etc. skills. Develop and sell plugins in the BuildFire Marketplace (coming soon). Become a Certified Developer. All are available and provided free by BuildFire. Below are links to help you get started.
You certainly can. However, why would you want to? You have to build to two separate apps one for iOS and one for Android which will mean you will have a bigger barrier to entry, longer development cycles, higher costs and a smaller talent pool. Just like talented web developers stopped developing public facing sites, not because they are incapable but because they are better put to use focusing on core business logic. The same applies with BuildFire. We take care of the designs, layouts, logins and standard features of the app. As well as give you access to a limitless set of third party plugins while you can focus on the core business functionality unique to your company.
Another big reason to develop with BuildFire is the ongoing support burden associated with developing from scratch. Once you develop an app from scratch, you own the ongoing burden of maintenance, support, app store submissions, updates, etc. Develop on the BuildFire platform and we handle all this for you.
How much time and money can I save developing a “custom” app with BuildFire?
When the intricacies and nuances of your unique situation requires a more customized solution, this is where the power of BuildFire’s technology really shines. Custom development from scratch will generally run 18 to 25 weeks and cost anywhere from $75,000 to $3,000,000. Thereafter, you need an infrastructure to support and maintain the app. If you are considering a customized solution, consider BuildFire; the savings in time and money will be significant.
BuildFire’s “off-the-shelf” functionality and solutions are very powerful and highly flexible. You will generally be able to complete 80% to 90% of your requirements using BuildFire’s existing off-the-shelf features. The ability to combine these off-the-shelf features with custom functionality enables you to create a custom mobile app in a fraction of the time and cost of traditional development. To further facilitate your development and save added time and money, we have made all of BuildFire’s standard plug ins open source. Take what we have, improve upon it and go in any direction you like.
In addition, with BuildFire, you get a platform that is easy to update and maintain; no need for expensive IT resources. BuildFire handles all support, hosting, updates, app store submissions and management of future upgrades.
What is a Plugin and what can I do with it?
A Plugin is a encapsulated group of code that is able to integrate into your BuildFire app. Each Plugin consists of 3 major parts….. Control, Widget and Services. The Control is the part that lives in the control panel that usually administers the content and design of what will show up in the app. The Widget is the code that lives in the app. Services are the functions used by both the Control and Widget to enhance functionality like publishing data or accessing the bluetooth functionality on the device.
For example, if you were creating an inventory availability plugin. The Control would have a list of all items in inventory and their qualities editable by the app owner. The Widget would have a search feature to find items the user is interested in and provide a read only view into the inventory. The services in this case would be the DataStore where the data is saved.
Which BuildFire plugins are open source and what can I legally do with them?
All BuildFire plugins located at https://github.com/buildfire are open source under an MIT license. Few plugins are not as they rely on other frameworks that are not open source. With BuildFire, you are allowed to enhance and send us Pull Requests if you’d like to help contribute in the betterment of the platform. You are also allowed to Fork the code and create your own private enhancements for your own use or for resell.
If I develop a custom feature, do I then need maintain the entire app?
No, you only maintain the plugins you develop. A BuildFire subscription covers all future maintenance, app store submission, updates and customer support, etc. You focus on developing value added functionality, let BuildFire handle the rest.
What’s the difference between BuildFire’s Hybrid app development and Native app development?
Native apps are apps developed using the Native development languages and frameworks of the phone. While this gives you the most control, it is also the most expensive and time consuming. Especially, if you factor in the two teams you’ll need one for iOS and and one for Android.
BuildFire’s Hybrid apps are apps built on the same native components. However, we use command and standard frameworks like HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript to unify the development of both iOS and Android platforms. This reduces to technical complexity, eliminating the need for very specialized developers that are tough to find and very expensive to retain. If you know web development, you can create custom apps with BuildFire.
So what is BuildFire.js ?
BuildFire.js is a Javascript Framework that allows you to build custom plugins on the BuildFire Platform. Using standard HTML5,CSS3, Javascript and buildfire.js you can build custom UI and logic that lives on that App and Control Panel. BuildFire.js gives you access to the app and native device functions that would otherwise be inaccessible to you.
What Frameworks can I use?
Any client-side javascript based frameworks should work just fine. BuildFire provides common frameworks out of the box like JQuery and Angular. However, you are not limited to what we provide. You can use frameworks like require.js, underscore, backbone, react.js …etc as long as you copying them into your plugin.
Can my plugin communicate with my private backend servers?
Yes. We even show you how to avoid cross domain issues when trying to access them from BuildFire. Cross domain issues are resolved either by enabling CORS on your API server or enabling jsonp communication with your servers.
How do I do QA test my plugins for all the potential devices and environments?
If you create custom functionality, BuildFire will QA test it for free.
Your development question was not answered?
Log a ticket at devsupport@buildfire.com and we will get back to you as soon as possible.
Mobile application development has been trending upward for years. This subcategory of software development specifically refers to applications that run on mobile devices.
Mobile apps are built for different operating systems, like iOS and Android. By leveraging the built-in features of smartphones, apps offer an enhanced user experience compared to mobile web browsing.
More than 78% of people worldwide own a smartphone. What are people doing on these devices? They’re using apps.
These apps fall into a wide range of categories, including gaming apps, music apps, calendars, communication apps, and more. I’m sure you’re familiar with some of the world’s most popular apps like WhatsApp, Spotify, HeadSpace, Facebook, and Instagram.
Creating an app is a great business decision. But first, you need to understand the mobile app development process—which is why we created this guide.
What Is Mobile App Development?
Mobile app development is the process used to create software for smartphones, tablets, and mobile devices. The overall process includes writing code to create the software and designing the app.
App development is similar to other software development, including web apps. But the biggest difference between app development and traditional software development is the ability for mobile apps to use native features on a device.
For example, apps can leverage mobile features like GPS, Bluetooth, a camera, microphone, and other functions that are pre-built into a smartphone.
Apple and Android apps dominate the global market share for mobile apps. So while it’s possible to create apps for other platforms, most apps target these two markets.
It’s also worth noting that there are several different app development frameworks to choose from. So you’ll have lots of options to consider, which we’ll cover in greater detail throughout this guide.
Mobile App Development Process
The app development process is simple when you break it down into different steps. If you want to build apps, follow the formula below:
Refine The Idea And Strategize
Before you start any software development, you must first brainstorm your ideas. Some of you might already have a basic idea or concept. Others might be starting from scratch.
Here are some helpful starter questions that you should be asking yourself:
What do you want your mobile app to accomplish?
What are your app goals?
What problem (or problems) will your app solve for customers?
What features will your app include?
How much money are you willing to invest?
How will you develop the app? (In-house team, agency, app builder, etc.)
It’s easy to get carried away during the brainstorming process. But it’s really important to stick to the app’s core features. Forget about unnecessary add-ons or “nice-to-haves” that deviate from the app’s primary function.
Market Research
Once your idea is finalized, you need to look at similar apps that already exist. It’s rare to have a completely new concept with zero competition.
Who are your competitors?
What target audience are you aiming for?
What’s your differentiation strategy to stand out from the competition?
What’s the best platform to launch your app on?
How will you market and promote your app?
Market research is an important step you can’t afford to skip or rush through. You don’t want to spend time and money developing an idea only to realize that there’s no market need for it. So you can save yourself a ton of money by getting this sorted out before you start building anything.
Build Your UX Design
The mobile app design process is another crucial part of the process. Start thinking about how your app will look and feel. Start drawing some sketches and create wireframes to see how the app will work.
Focusing on the user experience must be a top priority. You need to make sure the user interface is seamless and easy to navigate.
Create a storyboard or roadmap to demonstrate connections between each screen.
Think about the differences in how people will use your app compared to a mobile website (app development and web development are not the same).
User experience must be your top priority.
You’ll want to create some prototypes of the app based on your wireframes before you start to build a fully-functional app. From here, you can create an MVP (minimum viable product). This is a bare-bones app that achieves its primary goal without all of the bells and whistles.
App Development
Now it’s time to actually create the app. This includes all of the back-end technology, APIs, and front-end building. Here’s what you need to do:
Choose your development method.
Assemble your development team.
Appoint a project manager.
Establish a timeline with milestones and goals.
Be agile, and prepare for changes along the way.
Depending on your development method, you might need to build two separate versions of the app—one for iOS and one for Android. Alternatively, you can use cross-platform development tools to create a single version of the app that works on both operating systems.
This process will look a bit different for everyone. Some apps can be built in a month with a single developer. Others can take six months or a year with multiple developers.
The type of app you’re building and the complexity of its features have a significant impact on the timeline and budget for app development. A simple app with basic features should be quick and affordable to build. But a complex app that needs user authentication servers, GPS capabilities, real-time communication between users, and other similar features will obviously take a bit longer to develop.
Testing
Before your app goes live, you need to make sure that it actually works. App testing is when you’ll find bugs, glitches, and anything else that needs to be cleaned up before it gets put in the hands of your customers.
Testing your app with QAs throughout the development process is the best approach.
Make sure you test the app on both platforms.
Test the app on different devices (smartphones, tablets, etc.).
Run tests with real users to gather feedback and make improvements.
No app is perfect. The purpose of your testing is to put out a functional app that works without crashing so users can enjoy the experience.
You can also make updates to your app and release new versions later on. But trying to make sure the app is perfect during the testing phase could mean your app never gets to market. So don’t be too hard on yourself, and just try to put out a solid product.
What Are The Best Mobile App Development Platforms?
With so many options available on the market for app development, you’ll need to narrow down your options based on your skills, goal, app type, and budget. The following tools not only allow you to create an app. But they also make it possible to test, optimize, debug, and maintain your app post-launch.
Here are the best app development platforms on the market today:
BuildFire
BuildFire is the most powerful no-code app builder for iOS and Android. Users with no technical knowledge or coding experience can use BuildFire to create a fully customized app from scratch. It’s an excellent option for startups and existing businesses alike. Adding functionality is as simple as installing plugins from the BuildFire feature marketplace.
BuildFire also offers full-service app development. You can come to BuildFire with your idea, and the development experts will create your app and even maintain the app for you post-launch. Unlike other app development companies, BuildFire is a partner in your success. This partnership includes app strategy sessions, design, wireframes, prototypes, and everything else you need to develop a stunning app for your business.
Another unique standout of BuildFire is its limitless functionality. Even if you’re using BuildFire’s DIY builder to create an app on your own, you can still add custom features to the app. If you don’t see a feature that accommodates your needs in the plugin marketplace, BuildFire can create that feature for you.
Alternatively, you could hire your own developer and use the BuildFire SDK to create custom functionality using Javascript, HTML, and CSS. You have the ability to add any framework you want using BuildFire’s existing infrastructure.
Overall, BuildFire is the best solution for mobile app development on the market. Regardless of your app type, business size, skills, or budget, BuildFire has a solution for you.
Flutter
Flutter is an open source framework that lets you create cross-platform apps with one codebase. Created by Google and released in 2017, Flutter is a relatively new concept compared to other options on the market.
You can use Flutter for mobile development and web applications for iOS, Android, Linux, macOS, Windows, and more. It’s a great option for anyone who wants to build desktop apps and web apps using a single codebase written in C, C++, and Dart.
Microsoft Xamarin
Xamarin is another open source UI framework for Android, iOS, and Windows applications. It uses C# and .NET to create cross-platform apps with a single shared code.
This platform is popular because it allows users to create apps with a similar look and feel across different platforms and devices. In many cases, the applications will feel like a native deployment. Xamarin also has a wide range of developer toolkits for Windows and Mac. It integrates with native APIs, backend services, and more.
Adobe PhoneGap
Adobe PhoneGap is a bit different from the other options. You can create an app with PhoneGap using JavaScript, HTML5, or CSS3. PhoneGap also has a plugin feature for adding functionality.
It’s also worth noting that PhoneGap is a distribution of Apache Cordova. So you’ll often see these terms used in tandem. Apache Cordova is essentially the engine that powers PhoneGap.
Different Types of Mobile Apps
App development today is very different from the past. Historically, low-level coding for native development was the only option. So if you wanted an iOS app for the Apple App Store and an Android App for the Google Play Store, you needed to code two different versions from scratch.
But the barrier to entry for app development today is much lower. App development tools, languages, and platforms are more integrated, and Javascript is used for cross-platform codes.
This makes it much easier for e-commerce companies, existing businesses, and entrepreneurs to develop native apps from scratch.
Here’s a brief overview of the different types of apps and what makes them unique for development:
Native Mobile Applications
Native apps are installed directly on a mobile device. These are typically installed through the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. In most cases, native apps can work without any internet connection, and they leverage existing features of the device they’re installed on.
Developing a native app means writing code specifically for the operating system of the device.
Cross-Platform Native Mobile Applications
With a cross-platform app, the same code is used for all platforms. So you can write your code once, and the app can still be installed natively on both iOS and Android devices.
From a user perspective, there is almost no difference between native and cross-platform native apps. From a development standpoint, cross-platform native is more affordable and shortens the development timeline.
Hybrid Mobile Applications
Hybrid and cross-platform are often used interchangeably, although they aren’t exactly the same. Similar to cross-platform, hybrid apps can be written once and work on both platforms.
But hybrid development is a bit more user-friendly compared to cross-platform development. Cross-platform app creation is still highly technical and requires app development skills. Hybrid development is less technical and can be achieved with basic web development knowledge or no-code app builders.
Progressive Web Application (PWA)
PWAs are apps delivered through the web, as opposed to being natively installed on a user’s device.
Modern technology has made PWAs look and feel extremely similar to a native app experience. You can even send push notifications to users, which get delivered via the web browser. But PWAs will be a bit more limited in what they can achieve using the native features on a device.
Cross-Platform Or Progressive Web Application?
Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of cross-platform apps compared to PWAs. This will help you determine which option is better for you, your app, your budget, and goals.
Cross-Platform Advantages:
Cross-platform native apps are easier to maintain because you can sync updates across all platforms.
It’s a quicker turnaround time compared to traditional Android development and iOS development.
Less time on development typically translates to affordability, which means you can spend more areas on other parts of the app.
You can effectively reach a wider target audience, targeting smartphones and tablets on multiple platforms.
Cross-Platform Disadvantages:
There are performance issues with some operating systems, which means you’ll need to debug more frequently.
In some cases, there can be security issues with certain OS.
There are longer wait times if you want to deploy new features in the app.
Progressive Web Application Advantages:
PWAs are cheaper to develop and maintain compared to native apps.
They’re quick and easy to install on different devices.
PWAs have the power to work everywhere due to cross-platform support.
PWAs offer an enhanced user experience because they’re so efficient.
Progressive Web Application Disadvantages:
You can’t access PWAs from an app store.
They offer fewer functions that can affect the user experience.
Functionality requiring Bluetooth or NFC can be limited when it comes to working within the app.
Hybrid vs Native Apps
Now let’s take a look at hybrid apps compared to native apps and see the pros and cons of these development frameworks.
Hybrid App Advantages:
Hybrid apps look and feel like a native app.
They’re more cost effective to build and maintain.
You can create a hybrid app using HTML, Javascript, and CSS.
Hybrid apps provide a faster development process.
Hybrid App Disadvantages:
Poor performance on older devices.
Hybrid doesn’t work for certain types of apps.
Features might be limited with hybrid development.
Native App Advantages:
Exceptional performance.
All functionalities on different smartphones are possible.
They’re made with IDEs (integrated development environments) like React Native.
Native apps still run smoothly on older devices.
Native App Disadvantages:
Native apps are the most expensive to develop.
They’re time-consuming to build, and you need to build separately for iOS and Android.
The development tools aren’t user-friendly.
They’re more prone to bugs and usually require frequent updates.
Conclusion
There’s a lot to unpack with mobile app development. But whether you’re creating cross-platform apps or native apps, you always need to prioritize the user experience.
Your app’s functionality needs to meet its primary use case, and the interactive features must be easy to navigate.
There are tons of different paths to take for app development. The best option for you depends on your budget, goals, timeline, technical skills, and app complexity,
Overall, BuildFire is the best option to consider because the platform is so versatile. BuildFire has a no-code DIY solution that’s great for entrepreneurs. We also offer full-service app development that includes post-launch maintenance and support.
5.8 (inch screen) = 462 PPI
