Think Beyond Development When Choosing a Mobile Platform

There’s more to picking a mobile dev platform than development. Be ready for the full app lifecycle if you want your app to thrive.

When selecting a mobile development platform, you’ve likely spent most of your time evaluating how well it enables you to develop and launch applications. Makes total sense. But what else does it do? We know there’s a lot more to it than that. Applications are not just ships that you launch, then forget. They are evolving assets that must be maintained, understood and improved over time. The mobile development platform you select should also be equipped for these essential tasks.

What Else Should Your Platform Do?

User experience must be top of mind when developing mobile applications. But lots of factors affect the mobile user experience. This includes how well your app integrates with your existing systems. That of course opens the can of worms about security when key systems are accessed that your users need to fuel that superior experience. Monitoring how users engage with your app and being responsive to their “friendly suggestions” is key to keeping them happy over time.

How many apps have you personally deleted because they ceased to be maintained and improved? More than a few I’d wager. Your app development platform should account for these post-development needs and enable you to develop, deploy, manage and monitor it without writing a ton of code. It should make it easy for you to quickly address any stage in the app lifecycle.

Choose to Stay Flexible

From the start, there are many decisions you need to make that will affect your app’s future. Not the least of which is what approach will you pursue? Web, native, hybrid? If your development platform supports multiple approaches, you will have the flexibility to choose the right model on a project-by-project basis. This way you can choose whether the application should be web, hybrid or native based on its specific requirements. Lock in to one, and you may find that the functionality you want doesn’t quite look up to snuff once deployed. Staying flexible is your best bet, and your development platform should offer this as a key differentiator.

Is Your App Safe?

According to the 2015 Trustwave Global Security Report, 95% of tested mobile applications were deemed to be vulnerable, with a median number of 6.5 vulnerabilities for each mobile app. This isn’t too surprising given that 57% of developers have yet to build a mobile app. Hmm. Perhaps your mobile dev platform should also offer some security features, especially if you like to work in the cloud.

There are several more features you should consider, but this whitepaper presents them well in a very digestible form. It reviews the 8 Considerations in Choosing a Mobile App Development Platform, and I highly recommend it. 

Good luck with your search!