Mobile applications have been around for a pretty long time now. We use them every day for different reasons – to order pizza or taxi, book a plane ticket, send funny photos to your friends or just read the news. However, there are still a lot of app development myths that, maybe, were true a few decades ago, but have nothing in common with modern practices.
Today we’re going to take a closer look at them and find out what is true and what is not. Let’s start!
Myth # 1: Creating a mobile app is expensive and difficult
The volume of money and efforts that you are going to spend in order to create your app depends on many different factors:
- The number of features.
- Platforms compatibility (iOS, Android, Windows Phone or all at once).
- Complexity of the interface design and animations.
- Back End (also known as a server part).
- Type of employment (hiring an indoor team, outstaffing developers or outsourcing your mobile app development).
And this list can be continued. But anyway, the point is that you don’t have to be a billionaire to develop a mobile app for your purpose. For example, it’s possible to create a nice-looking application for $10,000-$20,000 if you outsource development to Eastern Europe, for example, to Ukraine.
Myth # 2: Web is better than an app
In 2018, some people still believe that building a good old website is always a better investment than a mobile application. But statistics prove us the opposite.
For example, according to Statista, every third person in the world was a mobile user back in 2016. By 2019 this number is going to grow up to ⅔ (or 67% of the world population).
“I see,” you may answer, “but they use their smartphones to access websites”. Wrong again! If you look at the Yahoo’s Flurry analytics, you will find out that about 90% of the time is spent in apps!
Finally, check the research by PR Newswire that relates to the retail industry. Users browse 286% more products through applications rather than web browsers. And the overall conversion rate on apps is about 120% higher.
It’s difficult to argue with numbers, so this myth about mobile app development is unraveled!
Myth # 3: It’s very easy to find an app development company
If you look at the research by Evans Data, you will find out that there are over 12 million app developers and each year this number grows! What’s the problem in finding 2-3 skillful guys out of 12,000,000? Should be none.
But if you want to find app developers that will perfectly match your needs, be ready to spend some time. The typical workflow for you is the following:
- Clearly define your requirements, so you know exactly what are you looking for. This may include years of experience, familiarity with specific technologies and so on.
- Think of places where you are going to look. Consider freelance boards, social networks, tech blogs of IT companies and references from your friends.
- Make up the list of candidates. Take a look at their portfolio, experience, expertise on your matter and location primarily.
- Interview them and make your final decision!
Myth # 4: The release of an application ends its development
Many people erroneously understand the process of developing a mobile application as a race that is over after crossing the finish line. Yet, things work a little bit different in the mobile world.
The best way to understand this is to imagine the whole process as the sequence of cycles. When you hire app developers and they develop the first version of your application, that’s just the first cycle. After that you have to think about the post-release maintenance, fixing bugs and improving your app!
Make up the list of new tasks (for example, to remove not popular features, add the new ones, improve the interface and so on) and start completing it – that’s when your next cycle starts! You can repeat this as many times as you need in order to constantly enhance the application even more.
Myth # 5: Mobile app development is useless for my business
When talking about mobile apps, many business owners just can’t understand what benefits they’re losing without having the app. But there are many successful examples around which prove that it’s just one of the myths about mobile app development.
For example, such brands as Zara, Taco Bell or Domino’s Pizza managed to increase their income by 20-60% after releasing a mobile application for their business. And this applies not only to the famous brand, but local businesses as well!
Moreover, don’t forget that your app can serve you as a retargeting and marketing channel, tool for building brand loyalty and analyzing customer data.
Myth # 6: Outsourcing and outstaffing are always worse than hiring an indoor team
When people hear the words “outsourcing” and “outstaffing”, many of them for some reason consider these options as potentially bad and unpromising for their projects. However, these both approaches have a huge potential and can help you save development budget but still find the needed expertise and get the app of top-notch quality.
When outsourcing mobile development, you delegate your project to another skillful and experienced team. Your role as a client is simple as that: you have to set the requirements and then control the development process until the work is done.
This approach allows you to delegate your headache to the pro’s who have already dealt with similar projects and, therefore, have relevant expertise. Moreover, if you select an app development agency from, for example, Eastern Europe, you can significantly cut expenses but still get a product of great quality.
Outstaffing, on the other hand, can help you to enrich your indoor team with a specific professional. The main advantages of this approach are the following:
- You are flexible when looking for app developers. Since you’re not limited geographically, there are far more options to choose from.
- It’s possible to reduce expenses if you hire app developers from countries with more liberal tax systems and lower costs of living.
- You don’t have to waste time solving organizational issues (salary, a system of motivation, the arrangement of a workplace and so on) – that’s what the outstaffing agency takes care of.
- You can adopt the experience of your remote employee but still have the full control over the development.
Myth # 7: Mobile app development is just coding and nothing else
If you want to build a really cool and successful app, you should know that development isn’t about writing the code. First and foremost, it’s about solving issues of your users. That’s why developers pay so much attention the so-called UX – user experience. Generally, the best way of thinking in this situations is:
- Define your potential users’ problems.
- Think how you can solve them with your mobile application.
- Turn your ideas into the code!
Every button, every interface element, every feature should be quick to reach and easy to understand. Everything in your app should be reasonable.
That’s why you should always prepare and review wireframes of your app and think your idea through and out.
Myth # 8: You have to build a perfect app for all platforms with one try
It’s always good to strive for the best but don’t expect to achieve everything at once. Scale properly and you’ll have more chances to succeed.
The best strategy is to define a few essential features and release your app without any excessive ones. Talking in terms of mobile app development, you should go with an MVP.
It will allow you to attract investors (since you will have the product that you can show them), get the first customers and feedbacks, test your idea in general.
Remember what we told about the cycles? Don’t try to jump over all of them, instead move one by one. Thus, you will save your money, time and efforts but will be able to scale properly.
Myth # 9: Your app can get thousands of users without any marketing
Having a nice-looking and well-built mobile application is just a half the battle. You may have a perfect product from the technical perspective but if nobody, except you and your team, knows about it, it’s absolutely pointless.
So what is to be done?
There are two kinds of traffic that you can get. Organic downloads are the ones you get without putting too many efforts and for free. For example, when people just manage to find your app in App Store or Google Play or when you promote it through your social channels.
Inorganic downloads are the ones that took place because of the paid ads. Try to combine marketing strategies and use different channels so as to increase your organic and inorganic downloads. Without it, you won’t be able to achieve market success.
Myth # 10: It’s possible to create a good app without writing a single line of a code
If you ever thought about creating your own app and was looking for app developers, you’ve probably heard something about app builders. These are the services that let you build a mobile application using pre-set “blocks”, like LEGO bricks. You just choose from the list of screens, put them in the appropriate order and fill with the needed information.
Yet, if you truly believe that this is how really good apps are created, you should know it’s just another one of app development myths.
Earlier we mentioned that the best mobile applications solve specific problems of the users. Moreover, they do it in a fast and effective way. Do you think that standard tools can do that? Obviously no.
