From being less irrelevant in business to one of the essential things you need to establish for someone to build their business, mobile apps have come a long way. All thanks to the progress and development of smartphones, many business owners can now create a different stream of income for their businesses. If you’re interested in mastering the fundamentals of mobile app development, check out our comprehensive guide on How to Create an App that covers all the essential aspects of creating a successful mobile application and will provide you with valuable insights to kickstart your app development journey.
Thankfully, android development is open source, which means that everyone who knows how to use the available platform and has an amazing idea can create an app of their own. Not to be biassed or anything, but Android is the leading platform in terms of app development because of its flexibility and ease of use.
On the other hand, iOS can be pretty hard to grasp and learn, not to mention that you need to put much time and effort into the requirements needed for you to publish your app. You might think that knowing much about creating an app can be complicated, and you will be right to think that. However, if you’re way past the technicalities, all you need will be funding and a great idea, and who knows? Your app might be the next Genshin Impact or App Gallery.
Also, Read: Why Modern Software Development Practices Are Good For Your Business
Master the Languages
Of course, the first thing you need to know in mobile app development is to learn what is mobile app development and learning how to code. If you’re not adept in at least one of the most popular programming languages, then you can kiss your app goodbye. To start building your app, you need to master one of the many languages needed to create an app like Java or XML.
Learning about the language means you have to code, and you need it to create your app. Java and XML have steep learning curves, for sure, but as you start to learn and master them, you’ll be able to create more complicated and sophisticated apps you can ever dream of.
This is even important since learning Java or XML is one of the main staples of being an app developer, which means that you can assume that everyone in the business knows at least one in both of them. This also means that the competition is fierce, not to mention the publishing guidelines are very strict.
Also, Read: How to Find an App Developer to Bring Your Idea to Life
Familiarize Your Tools
Suppose you already know how to code using certain programming languages, as mentioned earlier. In that case, you will need to familiarize the tools needed to create the app and the integrated development environment. The Android app studio IDE or Eclipse is a beginner’s best friend and is crucial as it will teach you a lot of basic things for you to improve your coding.
However, if you’re ready for more complex tools, you can start studying Gradle, Apache Ant, or Apache Maven since they have more powerful tools to create more sophisticated apps.
Learn About Your App’s Main 5 Components
There are five main components in an app, and every one of them serves a different purpose as a whole. They are like five different entities but are working together to make up the whole app.
You can think of it as the skeleton of the app. These five components are Activities, Services, Content Providers, Activating Components, and Broadcast Receivers.
Activities are different aspects of your app that let the user control what they want to do with your app. That means that all of your activities will be part of a user interface, and each of them signifies a specific action.
Services are pretty straight forward as they will be the main features of the app that runs in the background. Contents providers manage the data you store in the app. This component also allows the user to provide or edit the data they will share with the app.
Broadcast receivers are what you call the announcers of the app. They can be shown within the user interface, but the user can’t control them. One good example of this is the signal bar on your phone. Last but not least are the activating components. It’s a simple asynchronous tool that lets the user activate a certain component. They are the things you press in the user interface.
Also, Read: How to Design a Website for your Small Business
Know Your App’s Goals and Objectives
Knowing your app’s goals and objective is crucial in the planning phase of your app development. Establishing this first will let you know how people will react to it and how it will play out in your marketing scheme. If you don’t know your app’s goals and objectives, you might as well not know what you want to do with your app.
There are three things you can ask yourself before you plan out how to publish your app.
- What problems will my app solve?
- What is my app’s core appeal?
- What feature should I bring with it?
Mostly, deciding on your app’s objectives and goals are directly related to your programming skills and funding. Without either of these, it’ll be hard for you to determine what your app should do and how it will pan out in the long run.
Simply put, if you have the skills but you have no funding, you won’t create the app that you’re visualizing. Without skills and plenty of fundings, you will lose your investors’ trust or a most likely waste of funding trying to make the funds worth it.
Do Research on the Android Market
The Android Market is vast, which means that every version of Android operating systems will be in there. That said, you have to maintain and test your app in every version of the Android operating system, which costs a lot of money, time, and effort. This ensures that every user who uses your app will have the best possible experience using your app. More satisfaction means more users, and more users mean more money.
Takeaway
Most people nowadays have smartphones, and smartphones are constantly evolving and changing. That said, mobile app developers are investing more and more time towards maintenance and testing that everyone will be able to enjoy their apps.
This also means that the market is growing, which emphasizes getting with the times in terms of technology. For a beginner, this can sound very tiresome, and it is. Learning the fundamentals first is the first step to be a more successful app developer shortly.
Author’s Bio
Whether he’s researching the latest mobile hardware specifics or diving deep into the world of software development technologies, Zachary loves to stay in the know. His talent at simplifying and explaining complex technical concepts makes his blog posts easy to read but very informative. Few people are as enthusiastic about mobile technology as he is, and he’s always ready to analyze a new trend.Â
