Mobile Development with Developex

By | May 5, 2020

INTRO:

Nowadays, when more than 54% of all users worldwide use mobile devices, rather than desktop, the question of why businesses, enterprises, organizations, media, banks, and other institutions need mobile apps does not rise at all, it’s an essential part of our lives and operation of day to day activities.

If you are looking for the development of your first or next mobile app, we’d like to share with you a list of tools and methods that our experienced mobile team is using for the realization of apps for our partners.

Developex has remarkable expertise in the area of custom mobile development for all existing platforms. Years of experience, 70+ successfully completed mobile projects, big experience in gathering effective mobile development teams, together with a custom approach to the needs of each of our particular client make us a good choice for your next mobile project.

CONTENT:

DEFINITION

Mobile apps are the software that developed to run on mobile devices, such as smartphones, tablets, etc.

Like desktop software, mobile apps can be created using different languages and frameworks. The most popular operating systems are iOS and Android, with almost equal market shares. And there are also native and cross-platform mobile apps:

Native mobile apps - are applications for use on one particular system only - iOS or Android, and created using the special tools and languages supported by the selected operated system.

Cross-platform mobile apps - are applications that can run on various platforms without any or little change and adaptation, there are a set of tools and languages that allow developing such an app.

Developex can assist you with the development of mobile apps for iOS and Android:

Native apps Cross-Platform apps
Main technologies:
  • Swift, Objective-C for iOS
  • Java, Kotlin for Android
Main technologies:
  • Flutter
  • Qt/QML
  • React Native
  • Xamarin

NATIVE VS CROSS-PLATFORM APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT

Advantages of native mobile applications:

  • Full utilization of the device potential, especially for the apps that require communication with hardware or implementation of advanced functionality (AR/VR, machine learning, video, games)
  • Access to all device’s features and the native API’s
  • Faster and more responsive performance for complex tasks and high load apps
  • Ultimate UI/UX experience in compliance with design guidelines
  • Updates for individual platforms can be applied without waiting for updates of 3rd party framework

Disadvantages of native mobile applications:

  • Different code bases for different platforms
  • Added cost of additional developers to build and manage code for each platform
  • More time on support and maintaining releases for each platform
  • Longer time to market as requires more time for development

Why sometimes cross-platform mobile app development can be better than native?

  • Unified design - good for apps that should have the same design for both platforms
  • Single code base makes app development time saving and costly
  • Fit for the apps with short or medium life cycle
  • Pressed for time - the development of the cross-platform mobile app will be faster what can be important if the project is sensitive to the time to market
  • Easier to support, release management is synchronized

For a lot of businesses and use-cases, cross-platform apps can be a good alternative to native iOS and Android development due to economical reasons (budget and time to market time).

Speaking about cross-platform apps it’s worth highlighting the relatively new and trending framework - Flutter. Flutter is an open-source UI software development kit (SDK) from Google, that was first presented on Google live event on December 2018 (Flutter 1.0) and by now become one of the most dynamically expanding one.

Developex team for cross-platform app development currently exploring Flutter and prefer it to React Native due to several reasons:

  • compilation into native code - you can get almost the same speed and efficiency of the code as on native technologies
  • Flutter can be extended with your own native libraries to handle specific tasks, it’s true for other frameworks but our experience showed that for Flutter it’s faster and easier
  • technically Flutter is more “friendly and logical” for developers. It gets easier to write code and customize UI compared to React Native. It is a subjective perception but it is always hard to quickly make Javascript developers to be mobile developers and vice versa.

Does it mean that React Native is a worse choice than Flutter? Not at all, it’s a question of business goals and project context - for example, it’s a better solution for bigger projects, where the mobile app is only a part of the ecosystem and for its web-part already used React, etc.

As for projects for consumer electronics: companion apps for audio, smart devices, or other hardware-related projects - Developex team suggests to use native mobile development and/or Flutter for more efficient and better functional apps.

OUR COMPETENCIES

  • Native mobile application development for Android (Java and Kotlin) and iOS (Swift and Objective-C)
  • Cross-platform apps development (Flutter, Qt/QML, React Native, Xamarin)
  • UI/UX design and strategy for your mobile apps
  • Scalable and adaptive UI for maintaining and appearance on different screens
  • Mobile clients development for your existing platform
  • Integrations with Cloud services, Social networks, Music streaming services (Spotify/Amazon/Deezer/TuneIn/Apple Music), voice assistants
  • Integration with location tracking and maps services/APIs
  • Development apps for various protocols and system APIs , including Bluetooth, BLE, NFC, Kernel Mode Drivers, USB
  • Development apps with barcodes reading, QR scanning
  • PoC development and R&D for mobile projects
  • Maintenance, support and QA

MOBILE DEVELOPMENT INDUSTRIES AND AREAS OF USAGE:

  • Accompanying apps for smart devices and wearables: smartwatches, wristbands, smart scales, smart dumbbells, and other fitness and wellness devices, location tags, etc
  • Apps for audio devices and audio streaming: apps for speakers, headphones, music streaming device, multimedia storage, etc
  • Apps for consumer electronics devices and IoT
  • Uber-like apps and ordering/service management apps for multiple businesses
  • Help-desks for enterprises
  • Social apps, Chatting and messaging apps with encryption
  • Mobile clients for business intelligence and SAAS platforms
  • HIPAA compliant healthcare apps
  • R&D mobile projects for disruptive industries
  • Other apps for business and entertainment

METHODOLOGIES & PRACTIСES

We base our work on the Agile paradigm (Scrum/Kanban) and on intensive communication of our Project and Delivery Managers with Product Owner from the Client's side.

We believe that fast reactions in a constantly changing environment and having a strategic “map” of possible impacts in place and up-to-date helps to prevent risks and delivers the best results.

Developex team can cover the full software development cycle, starting from software product design and planning, requirements analysis, UI/UX, firmware and software development, up to testing and 24/7 support.

EXAMPLES OF MOBILE APPLICATIONS

More about UI/UX services and process for mobile and other projects: https://developex.com/portfolio/ui-ux/

We can help at every stage, from technology consulting and concept strategy, through to full product and service development.

MORE ON OUR MOBILE DEVELOPMENT EXPERIENCE

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