What Is Mobile App Development: Everything You Need to Know

What Is Mobile App Development?

As the definition above states, mobile app development is the process of creating software applications for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. These mobile applications are designed to exploit the specialized capabilities of mobile devices, such as touch screen, GPS, camera, limited hardware resources like CPU architecture, memory (RAM), storage capacity, etc. It aims to give users a frictionless experience in communication, playing, and productivity.

Recent statistics confirm what could be said about the relevance of this field. A report by Statista says the global number of mobile app downloads was 257 billion in 2023, growing by one percent over the past year and solidifying the market. Through another insight, we learn that users dedicate about 90% of the time they spend on their mobile telephone on apps, showing their place as the mainstay of digital interactions on a day to day basis. Notably, this statistic is more pronounced considering that the global smartphone user population reached approximately 6.92 billion in 2023, according to Statista, which translates to 86.11 percent of the global population.

Definition of Mobile App Development

Mobile app development is defined on Wikipedia as the act or process of developing a mobile app for electronic gadgets such as personal digital assistants (PDAs), enterprise digital assistants (EDAs), or mobile phones. These are mobile applications, designed to run on mobile devices, which makes them aware of many hardware constraints. They include:

CPU architecture and speeds, which affect processing power.
Available memory (RAM), often limited compared to desktops.
Data storage capacities, typically smaller due to device size.
Display variations, such as technology (LCD, OLED), size, dimensions, and resolution.
Input methods, ranging from buttons and keyboards to touch screens, with or without styluses.

Mobile apps can be preinstalled on devices during the manufacturing process, downloaded from app stores (like the Apple App Store or Google Play Store), or presented in form of web apps that combine server-side and client-side processing (e.g., using JavaScript) to mimic an ‘application-like’ environment within a web browser. It is important to be flexible in reaching various user bases and platforms, with IBM stating that the development is more often done for the Android and iOS operating systems using Java, Swift, C#, and HTML5 languages.

Key Stages of the Mobile App Development Process

The process of mobile app development is a structured journey which consists of six key stages where each stage is interlinked and each is a crucial step towards successful delivery of a high quality app.

Requirement Gathering and Analysis

Initially, the focus should be on understanding the problem or the opportunity the app will solve. Together, developers and stakeholders derive the purpose of the app, the target audience and key features. It conducts market research and competitor research to find out how it can stand out from other alternatives and what would be the challenges. Say for instance, identification of a gap in the market for a fitness tracking app could involve analyzing similar apps in the market like Fitbit or MyFitnessPal.

Design

This work concerns the design stage which concentrates on user interface (UI) and user experience (UX). This would be creating wireframes, mockups and prototypes to visualize the app layout and the functionality. The aim of all this is that the app is intuitive enough, aesthetically pleasing and matches what the user would anticipate. Accessibility considerations, such as screen readers for visually impaired users, are also addressed in this stage.

Development

The app is built in this phase of coding based on design specifications. Appropriate programming languages and frameworks, Swift for iOS or Java for Android are used by developers to build the app’s backend, frontend and any other integrations with third party services e.g. payment gateways or cloud storage. According to Make IT Simple, it can take as long as eight to ten weeks to develop the process, doing intense coding to make features real.

Testing

The bugs are identified and fixed, functionalities are checked and the app is verified against the requirements specified. It is performed in different types, such as unit testing for an individual component, integration testing for an interaction between the components, and the user acceptance testing, to make sure that an app meets the user needs. Testing also includes checking performance, security, and compatibility across various devices and operating system versions.

Deployment

Once the app is working fine on all testing phases then it is ready to be deployed. This consists of asking the app stores (e. g. Apple App Store or Google Play Store) to review and approve the app. Later, after approval, the app is available to the public and users can download and install it.

Maintenance and Support

Once deployed, the app has setup maintenance to address problems that crop up and to implement updates and new features. User feedback, app performance and market trends are monitored by developers and feasible improvements are made. The app becomes outdated, insecure, and incompatible with new technologies and device capabilities because these do not have regular updates. For instance, examples of apps that update regularly are apps such as WhatsApp that frequently want to update features about end to end encryption or other chat features.

Future Trends and Emerging Technologies

The future of mobile app development is looking bright moving forward as the emerging technology will be changing the landscape of mobile app development. There are some major trends that will prevail across 2025 and later:

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning: AI and ML will continue to be integrated into mobile apps, enhancing personalization, automation, and user experience. For example, Apple’s release of Core ML 3 in 2023 has enabled developers to embed AI technology into apps, improving performance at every level, as noted by Buildfire.
Internet of Things (IoT): Apps that control and interact with connected devices, such as smart home systems and wearables, will see increased adoption. A report by Statista estimates IoT-related technology revenue to cross $1.6 trillion by 2025, driven by mobile app integration with IoT devices.
On-Demand Services: On-demand apps, fulfilling specific user requirements instantly, will remain popular, with a PwC report projecting the on-demand economy to reach $335 billion by 2025, as noted by Appinventiv.
Cross-Platform Development: Frameworks like React Native and Flutter will continue to facilitate efficient development across multiple platforms, reducing costs and time-to-market.
Security and Privacy: Increased focus on user data protection and app security will be paramount, driven by evolving mobile threats and regulatory requirements.
5G Technology: Faster internet speeds enabled by 5G will enhance app performance, particularly for real-time applications.
Blockchain: Blockchain technology will be used for secure transactions and data integrity, especially in fintech and supply chain apps.
Voice User Interfaces (VUI): Integrating voice assistants and natural language processing will improve accessibility and user interaction, as seen in apps like Siri and Alexa.

Types of Mobile Apps

Mobile apps development consists of developing apps for smartphones or tablets and are further classified into three kinds: native apps, hybrid apps, and web apps. Each with its own development methods, performance characteristics, and use cases and thus each with certain business and user needs for which it is most suitable. So, it is essential to understand these differences for developers and businesses to make sure that your strategies, services, and products meet with the user’s expectation and market trends.

These app types are of significance as seen in the recent statistics. Statista reported that in 2023 there were more than 257 billion mobile app downloads world-wide with a one percent year-over-year increase, showing the vibrant market.

Native Apps

Native apps are the type of applications, created basically for a specific mobile operating system, for instance, iOS or Android, utilizing the platform’s favored programming languages and software development kits (SDKs). Developers writing for Android use Java or Kotlin for that, while Swift or Objective C is common for iOS – as shown in a report by AWS. These apps are downloaded from app stores such as the Apple App Store or Google Play Store and installed from their source directly onto the device.

Key Features and Advantages

Performance: Native apps have superior performance and responsiveness because they are optimized for the device’s hardware and software. This free of hand ability to take advantage of the full capabilities of the device means that it will operate smoothly even for graphics intensive applications.
Device Integration: They are able to access all the device’s hardware features, like camera, GPS, accelerometer, or contacts, and deliver a rich and seamless experience to the user. The need to integrate the backend part of the application tightly is paramount to shipping these kinds of apps; it’s a must have for real time data applications such as navigation apps (Google Maps for example).
User Experience: Native apps are designed to follow the design guidelines of their underlying platform guaranteeing a user friendly and familiar user experience to the user. The consistency is useful for usability and user satisfaction like Instagram and WhatsApp apps.

Disadvantages

More expensive to develop because of the need for individual codebases for both Android and iOS (more time and resources).
The development cycle is a lot longer as the developers have to customize the app for every OS hence entry into the market can be delayed.

Hybrid Apps

A hybrid app is a mixture of native and web app built upon web technologies to run on top of special containers (e.g. Apache Cordova or React Native) in order to come up as a native app for mobile devices. It is this method of development that allows cross platform development so that a single codebase can be written that will work with multiple operating systems.

Key Features and Advantages

Cross-Platform Compatibility: Hybrid Apps can run on both the Android and iOS platforms with minor adjustments and this helps a lot in terms of development time and cost. For this reason, this is especially beneficial for businesses that are trying to reach a wide audience without having to duplicate efforts.
Web Based Content: It allows them to use web content and newest web technologies in easy to use and update features without the app store’s approval.
Device Access: If these apps are hybrid, they have access to some device features by using APIs provided by the native container for device access, like camera and geolocation, but the performance usually differs from native apps.

Disadvantages

Performance might not match native apps, especially for graphics-intensive applications or those requiring extensive device integration.
In certain cases, there is restricted access to certain native features which affects user experience when doing complex functionalities.

Web Apps

Apps that run in a web browser and can be accessed through URL without installing on the device are web apps. They do not have platform dependency, which means they can be accessed by any device with a web browser (e.g. desktops, tablets, and smartphones). This category consists of traditional mobile websites as well as progressive web apps (PWAs) which provides an app-like experience.

Key Features and Advantages

Platform Independence: Web apps are independent of the platform as they run on any device having a browser alleviating the need of platform specific programming. Because of this, they are great at reaching a large audience without further coding.
Easy Updates: No need to update the app manually for users, as updates are immediate as they are properly handled server-side, hence making it easier for developers to maintain it.
Cost-Effective: The development and maintenance cost is comparatively lower for development and maintenance as compared to native or hybrid apps as there is absolutely no need to make app store submissions or make platform specific optimisations.

Disadvantages

Internet connection dependency, in case when internet connection is unavailable and some programming functionality may be an issue.
They may not have all the features of native or hybrid apps such as deep device integration, this will also affect the user experience for some use cases.

Skills Required for Mobile App Development

Mobile app development, which is a process to develop software applications for smartphones and tablets is a demanding field to work on, requiring a range of skills. Designing, building, testing and maintaining apps that meet user needs and market demands require that developers blend both hard and soft skills. The mobile app development industry has grown rapidly with its global market valued at $206.85 billion in 2022 and projected to reach $567.19 billion by 2030. However, this presents a growth and emphasizes the need for the right skills in the Company to succeed in this competitive landscape.

The statistics of recent years prove that people are looking for skilled mobile app developers. With millions of apps available across platforms, developers must stand out by mastering both technical and soft skills, ensuring they can create high-quality applications that cater to diverse user needs.

Technical Skills

Skills Required for Mobile App Development

Mobile app development is essentially based on technical skills starting from being able to write code, build interfaces, and make things work. These skills are grouped under programming languages, frameworks and libraries, database management and testing and debugging where each finds use in different stages of the development process.

Programming Languages

Swift: It is the main language on which iOS apps are developed that is highly renowned for its safety, performance and modern syntax. It is a language that was introduced by Apple in 2014 and which has become the preferred tool for building iOS and macOS applications. Swift has been adopted far and wide and is used in popular apps such as Instagram and WhatsApp for their iOS versions. If you need proof, Stack Overflow’s survey runs annually, and Swift is one of their top choice languages as it is widely used by developers in their projects.
Kotlin: Kotlin is a conciser, more safe and less error prone then Java, it is preferred for Android app development. It has been Google’s official recommendation of the language after 2017, used by apps like Uber and Netflix, for Android apps. It is also interoperable with Java, has null safety and other modern features.
JavaScript: JavaScript doesn’t play a primary role in native mobile app development but it is used for Hybrid Apps that enables you to work on the development across the platforms using the frameworks like React Native or Angular. This is efficient for reaching a broader audience since it allows developers to create apps that work on both iOS and Android using a single codebase. To note here is that JS based companies like Airbnb and Dropbox prefer React Native owing to hybrid app development.

Frameworks and Libraries

For iOS: UIKit is the basic framework to make user interfaces on iOS, as it provides classes and protocols to create and handle views, controls and more. In 2019, Apple presented SwiftUI as a modern framework for developing user interfaces using Swift that accepts a declarative way to create adaptable layouts. These applications are designed to make optimal use of the space available by following the iOS frameworks to make sure that iOS apps are visually appealing and user friendly.
For Android: Google provides the Android SDK as the official software development kit for building Android apps that comprises different tools, libraries and APIs for various functionalities. Jetpack is a set of libraries and tools that help developers build high quality Android apps by providing components for, for example, lifecycle management, navigation, etc. and therefore helps developers in faster delivery of apps with optimal performance.
For Hybrid Apps: React Native from Facebook lets developers develop native-like iOS and Android apps with JavaScript and React, used by Airbnb and Dropbox. If built for mobile, flutter is a UI toolkit that lets you and your designer build beautiful, natively compiled applications for iOS and Android from a single codebase using Google’s Dart programming language, and is used by Google, Alibaba, among others. These frameworks help in cross platform development that eases costs and time to market.

Database Management

It’s important to understand how to deal with data storage and retrieval as well as ways to manage the data. Having database management skills provides developers the ability to design data storage systems that are able to scale, protect information, and maintain data consistency between devices and servers while being resource sparing on the mobile device. This is truly important for apps requiring offline functionality and data analytics.

Testing and Debugging

Being proficient in testing and debugging apps ensures that it works well, meets the quality standards and its performance on all devices is optimal. Unit testing, integration testing, and user acceptance testing are some of the tests, while debugging includes the identification and fixing of bugs to ensure higher performance and reliability.

Soft Skills

Soft skills (also called the interpersonal or people skills) are also needed to succeed in mobile app development. They improve technical capability, enable collaborative working and ensure that the projects are successful. Solving the difficult problem is only one of the key soft skills; communication, effective collaboration with a team, creativity, and the ability to adapt all play an important role too.

Problem-solving

Being able to solve hard problems and to solve them in novel ways is needed to overcome development problems like debugging code, optimizing performance, or taking in user input. According to the World Economic Future of Jobs Report 2023, problem solving is a top skill required in the future job market, and it constitutes analytical thinking, creativity, and persistence. For instance, if you are a developer, then you might need to optimize the load time of your app, so you need to think analytically to find the bottlenecks in the app and you need to be creative to implement an efficient solution for it.

Communication

Having excellent communication skills is important to work as a team with other team members, grasp the client’s needs and engagingly communicate technical concepts. Project success and customer satisfaction depends upon how well the developers are capable of articulating ideas and recommendations to project managers, designers, testers, and other stakeholders.

Team Collaboration

Key to project success is working well in a team environment, sharing knowledge, contributing to a positive work culture. Like most mobile app development projects, this one will likely involve a number of people such as designers, developers, testers, and other stakeholders; therefore, it will require you to work well as part of a team and project management skills. In accordance with the article of IEEE Xplore on soft skills requirements for mobile developers, teamwork is seen as one of the most important skills besides communication. For example when you are working with designers and implementing a user interface it has got to align with what body of work you’re trying to do.

Creativity

Designing unique and engaging user interfaces requires creative thinking to set it apart in a competitive market. With millions of apps in the market, developers have to think differently to build apps that are seemingly different to the users in some interesting ways, for example, have intuitive navigations or offer unique features. The success of the app, therefore, greatly depends on creativity.

Adaptability and Continuous Learning

The scene of mobile app development is always evolving and you get new technologies, frameworks and best practices are coming all the time. To keep up with the pace, developers must remain up to date and use tools such as Flutter, React Native, Ionic and keep learning how to stay relevant with the changes in the industry. Adaptability is so important because the mobile industry is fast paced, and technologies are advancing very fast.

Designveloper’s Mobile App Development Process

With over 11 years of experience since our founding in 2013 and a team of over 50 professionals, Designveloper has established itself as a leader in the mobile app development industry in Vietnam. We take pride in our portfolio which includes Bonux, a crypto wallet app with UI-UX as the centre focus, ODC, a healthcare platform aimed at patient management, HRM, an HR process digitization tool, and WorkPacks, a construction management tool among others, ultimately showing that we are versatile across the sectors.

Our team consists of experienced mobile developers, designers, and QA engineers, all working collaboratively to bring your app idea to life. We work on a cross functional team that understands the other side’s pain and is transparent, so that every single project receives a variety of perspectives and skill sets. With a concentration on VOIP technology and specializing in cross platform mobile apps with frameworks such as React Native, Flutter, etc. we can build apps that ensure the user is getting the best communication experiences possible, if your business aims to improve their communication applications then we are the team for you.

Requirement Gathering and Analysis

First, we begin with the business objectives of your need for your audience, and the problem you are trying to help them solve with your app. The scope and the requirements of the project are defined through thorough research and analysis and are well in line with your vision.
While doing all this, we use different techniques like user interviews, surveys, competitor analysis, etc., to find out our insights for the design and development. This is a crucial step when identifying user needs and market, the app ought to solve real world problems.
For instance, in a crypto wallet app with a concentration on UI-UX design, i.e. Bonux project, we commenced with comprehensive debates with the client on the security and usability parameters, which made the app pleasant and secure to use.

Design

Having outlined the requirements, our designers design usable and visually nice user interfaces to increase user experience. We also develop wireframes, mockups and work with the development teams to visualise the app layout and functionality.
We have an iterative process of design wherein we drive feedback from the clients as well as the potential users to refine the design till we think everybody is satisfied. It is by means of this collaborative work that the app remains aesthetically pleasing to the eyes as well as functional and user friendly.
For example, in our case, the ODC healthcare platform project was focused on clean and accessible design, which contributed to patient ability to manage health records and interact with the doctors and was positively perceived for usability among patients.

Development

Using the latest technologies and programming languages we develop robust and efficient mobile apps that use the best capabilities of a certain platform and meet a user’s expectations. In native iOS app development we use Swift, for Android – Java or Kotlin, and for cross platform applications we use a framework like React Native or Flutter to build the application consistently and efficiently.
To keep the code quality and make the collaboration easier, our development team follows some best practices like modular code, version control and continuous integration. Agile development principles – pair programming, behavior-driven development (BDD), test-driven development (TDD), are among the methods that help us flexibly adjust to changing requirements and to deliver value incrementally.
We have experience building native as well as cross platform native mobile apps and hence we can target more users with one codebase and save time and money. For projects like WorkPacks, a construction management tool, this is very helpful since we made a cross platform project to make it accessible to everyone.

Testing

Our development process involves testing, which is an essential element to guarantee the app runs as intended and meets the quality standard. We conduct several types of tests, including unit test, integration test, and user acceptance test to find and fix bugs, check the functions, and confirm the compatibility with different devices and operating machines.
Our QA team tries to look out for any performance issues, security vulnerabilities or user experience gaps so that the app is in its top performance. As another important step, this rigorous testing process is crucial in order to maintain high user satisfaction and user retention rates.
For instance, in the case of the HRM project, as an HR process digitization tool, we performed extensive testing to ensure that our app could manage large datasets efficiently and to conform with data privacy act to exhibit reliability for companies’ use.

Deployment

After the app passes all its testing phases we’d then prepare the app for deployment, doing the process of submission for the app store (such as Apple App Store or Google Play Store). To survive, we make sure that all the guidelines are buoyed; all the way to platform specific policies and security requirements, making sure the launching of the project is seamless.
We are also available to assist with any review-related process, making the necessary updates or fixes, until the app is finally approved and made available to the users.

Maintenance and Support

Once the app is live we provide maintenance and support in the sense of keeping it up to date, working and also resolving issues and adding new features based on user feedback and industry trends. The list includes fixing bugs, improving performance, and ensuring compatibility with latest technologies and devices capabilities.
We are in a long term partnership committed to the success of your app beyond the initial day of launch and provide continuous support to incrementally increase the user engagement and retention levels. For example, in our case with the Bonux project, regular updates were released to enhance security features and to add more features, however, keeping up with the competitiveness in the market of crypto wallets.

Conclusion

To summarize, mobile app development is alive and the key to the digital world at present and will continue to be in the future. By understanding the fundamentals of “What Is Mobile App Development?”, the different types of apps, and the necessary skills, developers and businesses can navigate the digital landscape of today and tomorrow. At present the robust market with more than 257 billion downloads in 2023 is expected to grow by $522 billion in 2024 draws the attention of the field irreversibly, and the technologies of the time like AI, IoT, and AR/VR will change what mobile apps can do.

Whether you are a developer, a business owner, or just someone interested in technology, it is important to keep up with these trends and constantly improve your skills in order to survive in such a competitive and changing atmosphere. Mobile app development has a bright future and those that firmly grasp the wings or the challenges and the opportunities will be best positioned to take the lead.