Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly Reality Check column where C-level executives and advisory firms from across the mobile industry share unique insights and experiences.
Key issues of today’s mobile app development
Today over 90% of Americans own a smartphone, and close to half own a tablet. According to a recent presentation delivered by Benedict Evans, co-founder of Menlo Park, Calif.-based Andreessen Horowitz, 2 billion people are on smartphones, and by 2020, 80% of the adults on earth will own a smartphone. Not surprisingly, there has been a dramatic rise in the use of mobile devices from scanning social media updates to accessing back accounts and looking for directions. And as more people are now using mobile devices to obtain information and get access to services, more business owners are realizing the benefits of going mobile.
Today’s mobile users expect best quality, security, speed, intuitive interfaces and on-demand access to the latest information across different mobile devices. They are intolerant of flaws in their mobile experiences and are quick to post negative comments on social media and in app stores. All these factors compounded by ever-increasing consumer expectations and infinite technological innovations put significant pressure on businesses. To stay competitive, enterprises have to develop and “live” test quality apps in record time and then never stop updating them.
To further complicate the matter, there is an apparent shortage of app developers. Thus, for example, the research recently conducted by an independent research company, Opinion Matters, had revealed that 94% of enterprises lack qualified app builders. Even if a firm manages to find an app developer, it should get ready to shell out thousands of dollars for a single business app and wait for a few months for it to be finished, let alone tested and then redesigned.
All these factors lead to significant backlogs of mobile app projects. For instance, 85% of responders to Opinion Matters have a backlog of at least one app, while 50% of the responders have a backlog of 10 to 20 mobile apps. In light of this, more enterprises are opting for more-affordable, flexible and rapid ways of app development offered by low-code platforms.
Solution to app backlogs
Low-code application development platforms let companies of any size and budget design custom business apps without hiring programmers. With this revolutionary approach of app development, all a user might need to do is choose a template from the menu options, fill it out and then deploy the new mobile app across all major mobile platforms. Furthermore, such apps offer numerous features including, but not limited to, free access to data from back-end and cloud-based servers and data synchronization across devices.
One of the chief characteristics of the app development process is that nobody can tell for sure what exact features an application should have until it has been live tested a number of times and then redesigned based on user feedback. Naturally, this process can be rather time-consuming and costly. However, thanks to rapid prototyping supported by low-code platforms, it can be expedited as it allows one to easily build numerous prototypes to be previewed, tested on various mobile devices and modified long before the app gets released.
In summary, entrepreneurs can now avoid mobile app backlogs by successfully designing top-quality mobile applications in record time, and without any programming skills. Thanks to low-code platforms, companies can respond to the market changes and consumer requirements in a timely manner, thus winning more customers, maximizing their profit margins and staying ahead of their less nimble competitors.
Alex Bakman has been designing and implementing innovative commercial software solutions for over 25 years. His fourth company, Snappii, offers a visual application development platform that enables the “masses” to create high-performance, native, cross-platform apps. Bakman is responsible for leading the company’s product development and technology strategy. Prior to founding Snappii, Bakman launched keywordcompetitor.com and started vKernal, a leader in the optimization of VMware data centers that was acquired by Quest, now Dell, in 2012. He also founded Ecora, a leading product in configuration and change management for IT that was acquired by Versata. Bakman also worked for Candle, Cleversoft, UNUM and IBM.
