What is Mobile App Development? How Mobile Apps Are Created

Mobile phones have become as essential to people as a purse or wallet. They now drive our retail purchases, guide our travel and capture images of important memories. Smartphone and tablet apps are now driving business activity as well.

According to Gartner, 70% of all access to business systems will be done via mobile devices.
As more employees use smartphones and tablets, companies must build apps that access corporate systems, enable business tasks, deliver information, or collect data. As a result, reducing time-consuming mobile app development processes is now a corporate priority.

While some companies use web apps to deliver information to mobile devices, web applications are not the same as mobile apps. They deliver information through a web browser, but cannot take advantage of the full mobile phone or tablet hardware capabilities.

People tend to love their iPhones and Android phones, and have loyalty to their platform of choice. With more companies allowing a BYOB policy, developers must be sure to develop apps that serve each operating system, and all size devices. Unless companies are supplying the devices to users, it's not possible to choose one mobile operating system over the other. That said, Android development tends to be the most costly, according to data.

Read Why Android Development Typically Costs 30% More

Companies are saving money by using low-code software to develop multi-platform apps, also called cross-platform apps, that leverage a single codebase to deliver outstanding user experiences on both Google and Apple devices.

Cross-platform apps can run on any iOS or Android device like native mobile apps or hybrid apps. Cross-platform app development uses a single code base (usually using low-code software) to build apps. As a result, the time to create apps that run on multiple mobile platforms is dramatically reduced.

Less development time speeds time to market while saving companies significant development costs. Some low code vendors build cross-platform apps at least 10 times faster than traditional methods.

In addition, less experience is required to use low-code software to do multi-platform mobile app development. As a result, companies won't need to hire mobile developers or outsource mobile app development to build cross-platform apps. Some of these apps can even be built by employees who aren't developers.

Companies are building apps cost effectively by using low-code app development software to produce cross-platform apps.

Native app development takes significant time to build an app, because it requires coding. Free open source products are also available, but you will likely need a developer to write code. Alpha Software, Appian, Appypie, Mendix, and Outsystems are some of the vendors that offer these development tools that streamline coding and reduce the time required to build all types of apps.

Another way companies are lowering development costs is by enabling less specialized developers , or citizen developers, to build a wide range of apps.

Alpha Software offers low-code and no-code software that developers and business users can use for free.

Many companies realize they don't have enough developers to build all the mobile apps they need. As a result, they're finding methods and tools that allow business users to become more involved in the development process.

Mobile application design and development once required experience in multiple programming languages to build apps for iOS or Android. However, in recent years, low-code software has emerged that allows developers without mobile development experience to craft enterprise mobile apps. No-code software tools, which typically employ drag-and-drop interfaces, allow citizen developers outside of IT to build basic apps to collect data and do simple business tasks.

One overlooked area of mobile app development happens after you build the apps: deployment. Apps can be self-hosted using an on-premise server or hosted by third-party ISPs and cloud services.

To make your app available on the Apple Store or Google Play Store, steps typically include:

Sign up for the store as a developer.
Prepare your mobile app, mobile app description and mobile app screenshots for submission.
Create an app store listing
Submit your mobile app listing, including description and screenshots.
Upload and submit your app for review by store editors.

Mobile App Examples

Alpha Software Corporation offers some of the best mobile application software available on the market. We specialize in apps that record accurate data, perform dispatch for field teams, log inventory, guide repair technicians, and more. Below are examples of modern apps for mobile smartphones and tablets with excellent user experiences. These apps automatically record GPS, time, date, and weather information. They can collect data, record audio, capture and markup images, perform calculations, scan barcodes, kick off real-time workflows, and more.