You’ve decided that a new app with pragmatic functionalities is what your brand needs to stay ahead of the competition. Congratulations! You’re beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. But as you’re concluding plans to hire iOS app developers, an unsettling cloud of doubt continues to hover in your inner skies, questioning the tenacity of your plans.
One way to rule out errors when getting iPhone app development services is to research and garner critical information. However, the thought of missing something very important can drive you into information overload. To help you avoid the risk of information overload, this article outlines all the key considerations that guide you when you’re looking to hire iPhone app developers.
7 Steps to Developing a Top-Notch iOS App
1. The Idea Formation Stage
This is the stage where you sketch the bigger picture. With adequate research, you can draw up sound objectives of your app development in this stage. This implies getting to understand your target audience inside and out, and also articulating the purpose the app is intended to serve. The market research that you draw on should also touch on your competitors’ app developments.
You need to lay out the fine details of your app development proposition in a specification document and a technical specification document. The specification document outlines the business logic to be imbued in the app, while the technical specification document specifies the functionalities that support the business logic in the app.
Some of the technical details you’ll need to include in the technical spec document are the server-side integration, the preferred programming language (Objective-C, Swift, or a combination of both), etc. You should hire iPhone app developers who’ll help fine-tune the scope of these documents.
2. The Wireframe Creation Stage
With the concrete details of your proposed app development well-laid out in the documents, the next step is to create the wireframe based on the fine details of these documents. The wireframe comprises a roadmap of the journey the app takes users and the blueprints for the user interface.
With coherency and fluidity at the heart of the wireframe design, you’re more likely to develop an app with a robust UI design. At this stage, you get to flesh out the contents of your app and how they co-relate to generate an excellent flow of user experience.
3. The Design Stage
Excellent iPhone app development services aim to create visually appealing app designs; ensuring excellent user experience. You can expect the iOS app developer to come up with numerous design prototypes that experiment with various graphics, custom animations, icons, and other visual elements.
The design stage also sees to the establishment of the style guide, design system and patterns for the application. Creating the front-end and back-end architecture is another sphere of an activity implemented in this stage.
This stage is also the point where the scalability of the app is determined; that’s to say, the design implemented in this stage determines how easy it will be to extend the app’s functionalities in the future. Nonetheless, the designer’s job does not end at this stage, as needs for the designers’ inputs may arise at any point in time during the app’s development.
4. Front-end and Back-End Coding and Deployment Stage
At this stage, the collaboration between the different members of the team kicks into high gear. You can expect a lot of correspondence between the designer and programmer, as the creation of functionalities and system architecture for both the front-end and back-end take place simultaneously.
Excellent iPhone app development services involve Xcode – Apple’s integrated development environment (IDE) – as well as numerous frameworks to integrate both front-end and back-end software in a robust software design and architecture.
Both the front-end interface and server-side back-end are interdependent. No matter how excellent the computing logic is, if it isn’t properly integrated with a back-end infrastructure that comes with superb server-side components, the app might turn out terrible.
5. The Testing Stage
When you hire iPhone app developers who are quite conversant with Apple’s submission and approval process, you can expect the developer to implement rigorous tests to check the quality of the app. The developer will test the app on a device or in Xcode’s Simulator, wherein the developer can address and debug any noticed defect in Xcode.
First-rate iPhone app development services test apps not only to verify how well their functions work, but also to check for a lot of other things including compatibility with different iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, iTouch), load time, capacity to handle traffic surges, and the overall flow of UX.
6. The Pricing and Submission Stage
You need to hire an iOS app developer who knows the ins and outs of Apple’s submission and approval processes so as to avoid unpleasant surprises during the submission process. However, it’s common for the need for additional fixes and resubmissions to arise during the submission process. You can also expect the developer to implement steps like creating a profile, creating a listing, etc., in order to get your app loaded up on the App Store.
As per the pricing of your app, you can offer in-app purchases that give users access to some critical functions that aren’t available for free. To determine the price of in-app purchases, you should consider not only the cost of developing the app but the value that the paid functions can give to users.
7. Fine-Tuning the Marketing Strategy for the App
Without a tenacious promotion strategy for your app, your app can quickly lose traction among your audience. There are a plethora of apps with great features and functions on the App Store. As far as successful apps go, it isn’t just enough to hire iOS app developer to build a great iPhone app.
Because if you don’t spread the word effectively about your app, you’ll likely get a low number of downloads, no matter how impressive your app is. A great marketing strategy can turn out to be the difference maker.
Conclusion
The steps outlined in this article presents you with the main talking points that guide the creation of excellent iPhone apps. After defining your app’s objective and your target audience, and then laying out a streamlined range of functions to be integrated into an excellent system architecture and design, and then testing for load speeds and flow of UX, you proceed to launch the app using a veritable marketing strategy.
