What is a Mobile Application, and How is it Developed?

Both providers and consumers of web app development services are convinced that such business applications are a great communication channel for businesses in particular. In this article, you will learn about the definition, practical application, and a little bit about web app development. After all, over the past few years, mobile app development has experienced a big boom, which has led to an increase in demand and dedicated services that are impossible without the involvement of web development as the whole lifeblood of businesses around the world. Let's start with the basics.

What is a mobile app?

A mobile app is a special software application created directly for mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets. Let’s look at the beginning of mobile apps, for example, a mobile calendar, a game, or a weather forecast. A typical example is the snake from Nokia 3310, a very popular application in its time.

Developers took advantage of the enormous potential and started promoting web and mobile app development services for almost anything. Do you need to measure how many calories you've burned in a day, edit a photo on your mobile, and share it directly to Facebook? If you have a smartphone or tablet, no problem.

Mobile apps have exploded in the last few years, and there are millions of them on the market. To download an app to your phone, simply download it from the Apple Store (iOS), Google Play (Android), or Microsoft Store (Windows Phone). Most apps are free to download.

How much does a mobile app cost?

About 30% of them are paid, and the rest are freely available. How much does it cost? Even for paid apps, the prices are usually low, ranging from an average of 99 cents to a maximum of tens of dollars for more complex iPad apps. An app can also be monetized through in-app purchases when you buy individual app extensions directly from the app. For example, it is typical in games that you have the option to buy extra lives. Most online payments are made by credit card. The most expensive apps can be found in the Apple Store, as developers have to pay the highest costs for placing the app in the store.

Currently, owning an enterprise app is a trend and a competitive advantage. So, the Implex team emphasizes that not only can a mobile app make your business more efficient and easier for your employees and business partners, but it can also serve as a marketing tool to retain existing customers and attract new ones.

Programming mobile apps

Mobile app programming may seem similar to website coding. It is not. While the job of an HTML coder is to know the code at the level where the position and shape of an element are determined, mobile application programming is based on object-oriented programming. This is a more complex mechanism and requires the professional knowledge of the programmer. Development is done in Objective-C (Swift, etc.) or Java, and the absolute accuracy of the developer is very important.

Any mistake can lead to poor program performance, which can result in high RAM consumption, unnecessary memory load, or high battery consumption. Not to mention the need to develop secure ways to connect the application, for example, to social networks or communicate with the server. Applications often work with the phone's GPS module, download data from remote servers, and give instructions to the sensors built into the mobile. For example, will the app work on all versions of iOS devices? Yes, mobile apps are designed for all versions of the iPhone and iPad.

After the huge boom of the Internet and websites, people started looking for ways to add dynamic page features. Over time, these attempts have gone so far that today you can make a website behave exactly like a desktop application (e.g., MS Word; you all know Google Docs or OneDrive). Such a web page is called a web application.

Web applications work by asking a server for a document from a client. However, the server runs a program that can generate what the user requests for the page. Thus, the page is no longer on the server but is dynamically created according to the user's wants.

What are the advantages of web applications?

• Easy administration. Uploading a new version of the program, and at this stage, absolutely everyone uses it.
• High level of security. Both the website and the database are on the server, and if it does not contain security flaws, it is very difficult to steal the program.
• Large user base. People are too lazy to download and install. In a web application, they just click on a link, and they are already working with it. There would be significantly fewer users who would use the same program if it were on the desktop instead of the web. And it was the users of the program who made it. Whether they are free or paid, we always want as many people to use them as possible. This is the main reason why almost all software today is web-based.
• High compatibility. Since web applications are accessed through a web browser, they are independent of the client's operating system and function on almost any device, including mobile devices.

The benefits of the client's computer are also maintained, as the server is not burdened with tasks like page rendering, which is handled by the web browser.