It takes a lot to become a Top Mobile App Development Company, anywhere in the world. Becoming the Top Mobile App Development Company in California USA has taken us energy, blood and guts. It has also been a great journey providing customers great ROIs, satisfaction and smiles all the way to the bank. The stakes are much higher when you’re in the great US of A. What does it mean to provide great mobile app development services? What gives a group of App Developers bragging rights to the top spots? Let’s start from the beginning. What does a Mobile App Development agency really do? Mobile app (application) development is the designing and making of apps to be used on a mobile (cellular technology) either internally or externally (through a network connection). These applications have specific functions that a user finds important, beneficial or useful. Only certain firms can offer complete services along the production lifecycle of a mobile app. The top Mobile app development companies will take an idea from the word go and after careful planning, wireframing, strategizing, and prototyping, create the app you asked for and get it deployed on the internet marketplace of your choice (Android or iOS). Good developing agencies are also able to provide you great post-deployment service and maintenance.

What is Mobile App Development?

The Mobile App Development Lifecycle is the traditional Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) from the perspective of a mobile device. Remember one thing mobile application making is a process involving extensive pre-planning.

Stage 1 - Plan

Whether you are developing any software or a specific mobile application, you need to first plan it, ensuring your project’s feasibility in terms of human resources and financial backing. The best ideas in the world cannot work without funds or people capable and willing to work on them. Starting without a well-made plan is always a bad business decision.

Understand Why The first step is understanding the core reasons for building your app. Ask yourself: What end result will your app provide? What purpose is it fulfilling? Who is the target audience for this app? How do you plan on building it? How will building this app benefit you/your business?

Begin Marketing, Already It helps if your marketing team initiates a campaign around the new app prior to deployment. This will create visibility and hype before and during the app launch. Campaign planning should also start in the app planning stage, but must remain open about app capability fluctuations until your product’s functions can be confirmed.

Analysis Start working on your Feasibility or Requirements Analysis. You should set up a team that understands the customer’s focus and will ensure that your project equals the end-user requirements of the system. Knowing user requirements results from having several, detailed discussions with stakeholders to gather as much relevant data as possible. Keep the users as your focus is a guideline that determines the practicality of your project features. As a Top Mobile App Development Company in California USA keeping your customers and their competitors in your focus to develop better solutions for your customers. Working on analytics and demographics helps, always. Analysis stage results may vary, but whether your team is filling official requirements documents or using a bunch of tickets, understanding is key. Project managers, software architects, and developers must work closely with stakeholders and end users, so that everyone is on the same page.

Stage 2 - Design

Called Design and Prototyping in the Software Development Cycle, the process is the same. Once you’ve got the app planned, get into design focusing on app functionality and user interface (UI). UI comprises what users see and what they interact with in the app. Functionality focuses on what users can do with the app and how it works.

Wireframing To develop the user experience, wireframing (making a rough draft of what users see) is important. Wireframe tools are incredibly flexible. You can add, edit, move, and remove ideas based on what works best for the end-user.

Stage 3 - Develop

Designers and developers map out products and prototype features. Prototyping gets feedback and shows you pain points in your project ultimately helping in clarifying decisions. These create practical models of the original idea to see if it is actually workable. Prototyping Wireframing and preliminary UI design are limited because they cannot show how the app draft behaves in real time. Prototyping allows developers to test initial ideas and find what’s missing or problematic before building. This prevents delays and middle of the road changes that slow down the build process and prevent a quick app deployment. Without a prototype, the team wastes time on creating products that don’t meet standards or needs. Sometimes the design must display provable results before stakeholders can approve of the project, so every step leads to this for more work to happen. A prototype shows that the project functions, even though it may need further improvements.

Stage 3 - Software Development

The initial kinks of your app prototype have been uncovered and worked on; the build process now begins. The actual app build is where your developer(s) should be pouring in the most time. In this stage, the initial plans, designs, and lessons learned from prototyping all come together as a guidebook for creating the end product. Build The greatest fluidity of the entire mobile app development lifecycle occurs in the build stage. The further we develop, the more hidden issues, bugs and kinks in functions are exposed. This may result in new ideas being generated but it helps to not get stuck in a constant idea development cycle. If the idea is too generalized, or not cohesive with the current progress, put it on hold. It may still be usable after launch. Instead focus on converting prototypes into working code. This is where you will start to see the outline of the final product and have a working feature to show customers. The cornerstone of this step in software development rests on the developers who will often review items with the product owner and the testers.

Stage 4 -Software Testing

Developers need to ascertain that app is fully functional, hence app testing takes it through every single function — from the most used to the least — to verify that nothing “breaks.” Testing is done either automated or done manually through software solutions, dedicated QA analysts, or crowdsourced testing solutions. Testing and QA Developers must find breaks in external links that don’t open, images that don’t load or button presses or interactions causing the app to hang before app release. Breaks are anything that leave the app incomplete. Early app reviews are incredibly important because of low sample size. If an app receives poor or mediocre ratings, it is likely to get thrown out of any App Store. QA Analysts check if coding holds up or acts up as per quality, pre-set standards and functionality; development principals are also checked for security. The result of testing should be finding a better solution that meets edge cases and user needs. No developers can foresee every single way in which coding will misbehave, hence testing provides a crucial perspective. QA Analysts then revert to developers or product owners as they come upon problem areas, so the product improves consistently.

Stage 5 - Deployment

In software development this would be the implementation and integration stage of the development life cycle. Implementation gets the usable code to its end-users. The operations team’s main focus in this stage is the deployment of software. App Stores Broad-scale deployment usually occurs through an app store. The App Store is an intermediary App marketplace that hosts the app for users to download or purchase in exchange for either a percentage of the sale price or hosting fee. In order to launch and maintain an app usually costs a publishing fee, transaction fee for each download, or both. App Monetization By now, you have determined the pricing structure for your app, or how the app can earn revenue. Some revenue-generators would be in offering your app as a: Freemium – The app is free to download and includes in-app purchases as extended features Single purchase – It is purchased at a one-time, upfront cost and no extra cost is charged Subscription – It has a periodic cost of ownership that is charged at certain intervals E-commerce portal – The app downloaded free but as a web storefront gateway.

Stage 6: Maintenance

Developers have deployed the software and must look out for bugs and defects for which they must create a bug report if they find any. Now support specialists work to report issues, product owners prioritize them, and developers and testers work together to make improvements. If developers are able to quickly identify and resolve problems, the stage is working well. Operations and Maintenance. Mobile development is called a continuous lifecycle because the app needs to be constantly maintained after its initial release. Some bugs only appear after deployment, if users find unexpected issues with the app’s performance on a certain device, they will need to be worked on or the app will be made redundant by users. If developers or designers come up with a new feature that is great for the app, shouldn’t it be incorporated ASAP? And how does one maintain the app’s relevance and functionality once technologies evolve? All maintenance should be proactive and constant, so your app remains visible and usable for a long duration.

Best Mobile Application Development Companies Now since app making has been detailed, let’s talk about what great app development companies do. What a great app development company should offer is:

Impressive Software Development Tools Build tools directly prove the level of experience a company’s developer(s) have. Individuals or small businesses might not have extensive development experience, then to use no-code development platforms or low-code development platforms. For enterprises, a good agency with experienced developers uses extensive features, tools and options to build with. An agency with any credibility would rather sacrifice time-saving processes for thorough working and better app capability.

Superior Testing All good app agencies work to minimize the number of errors or breaks as much as possible before app launches. This comprises rigorous and continued testing until all bugs are resolved. Apps that are not adequately tested prior to launch risks are setting themselves up for failure from the word go.

Cost-Effective Solutions A great agency actually helps to reduce app development related costs. Any business hoping to get a mobile app made may have its own IT department with someone or the other who is capable of app development. However, that does not mean they have all the knowledge and tools to develop your app and keep it relevant. It also does not mean that they will be able to keep up with emerging technologies and solve every technical issue the app faces. Only a professional organization will have the relevant manpower and software to do so, saving you time and money in the long run.

Increased Customer Engagement From wireframing to deployment, an agency knows the focus is always the end-user. With time comes expertise and a great agency has enough experience under their belt to draw users to your app. As the majority of customers use your mobile app to connect with your business, not only does your brand recognition increase, so does customer loyalty.

Clear Pricing Having a clear and flexible pricing agreement for your project before you start is always great. It costs from $30,000 - $700,000 for mobile app development services. The average cost for development is from $170,000/- to $200,000/-. If your budget does not add up, it might help to consider investing in an app development platform approach rather than full custom development. A reliable agency will be upfront about all payments related to app development if these are to be paid in one go or at intervals, and also if there are costs related to maintenance.

Communication and Customer Involvement Any app development company that puts its money where its mouth is, will always be customer focused. Consider how often they communicate with you and how before starting any project? A company that delivers a project update regularly is effective and shows self-accountable traits that are likely to lead to a successful project. During the hiring process, note if they:

reply to your messages and phone calls
offer constructive advice and
genuinely are interested in and supportive of your idea.

If they are not active during this stage, this could remain the same or worsen during development. Choose a company you can build a strong, working relationship with, where you can discuss ideas and find better app-building processes.

App Design Feasibility A great app does not come from merely coding, it is also about providing an appealing and functional design and monitoring the user experience generated by the app. Hence it becomes crucial that your app is well designed using popular and the most recent mobile app development software and design principles. Find out how they approach user experience and design principles in app development. Do ask for and examine the company’s previous designs and ask them to explain the methods they used to create them. App Release Process If an app company is credible they may have pre-set policies to help you in app store submission. Find out how they handle a client’s app release. Great firms may even submit the app for you or at least guide you through the submission process. Look for a company that works alongside you past the app lifecycle and will not leave you floundering after completing initial development and after hosting your app.

App Maintenance From time to time, after your app is launched you may need to add new features and/or functionality, fix bugs, or release updates. Learn the app maintenance and support policy of any app development company you choose. Ask whether app maintenance is charged hourly or monthly for ongoing support. Comb through the policies for cost per each new app release, bug fixing and post-launch support.

Why Appedology? It is extremely important to minutely examine anyone you plan on doing business with. A good firm must have technical expertise, good communication skills, accountability, proven history, and the enthusiasm to understand and envision your app idea. The company you choose can help you realize your app visions or derail them, so choose wisely. As the Top Mobile App Development Company in California USA, we remain open to you about our team, our process, and our strategies. We are always willing to discuss new ideas and changes but will also guide you where you might be misstepping. Our job is not to sugarcoat the truth but to guide you explicitly on what will work and what won’t. Located in Corona California, we have expert teams at our disposal to convert your app dreams into reality. We provide the best Cloud hosting services as well as post-release management services. Appedology hasn’t changed upon becoming one of the leaders in app development. This is through painstakingly providing each client (as showcased on our website) with results better than they asked for, whether it be just designing a logo or deploying enterprise-level digital solutions. We consider our worth in the work we provide, that is why we are willing to sit with you and discuss your requirements time and again until there is no confusion for you and the developers and designers in providing solutions. Great apps don’t happen by accident. Appedology develops them. Call now to get a free consultation of why your app idea is great and how feasible it is for you.