Mobile application development is the trend of the day. It engages everyone right from the famous industrialists to small businesses. Smart phone industry being the money-maker machine, all and sundry wants to be a part of it. Most developers have already engaged into app development and the remaining have initiated their research on how to start.

Hundreds of Smart phone apps are developed everyday but we hear about just a few of them. When you ask about it after a week, people remember even lesser among the few applications. Why so? When you ask what makes a good Smart phone app, the reply remains, Quality matters quantity doesn't. The quality of app is not judged upon how many users downloaded the app but how many keep using it. The best Smart phone apps are not merely interesting, fun or useful, but they're engaging. The recent CNN report says only one out of four app is engaging.

Localytics analyzed data on how thousands of apps for various platforms- including Android, iOS and Windows phone 7-are being used. About 26% of all apps downloaded are opened only once and then never used again.

Following the spirit of developing Quality mobile applications, let's take this article further incorporating expert tips on how to build engaging Smart phone apps that hit the market hard and get established.

Analyze the need

Do not build an app for creating sake. Analyze, scope, target audience, how engaging it could be, and whether we really need one. Also consider whether it's a free ad-supported app, supported by in-app purchase or a $.99 download that will rise to the top of the app store ranks. Once you have you concept clear, implementation is successful.

Laying the Foundation

Creating Smart phone app can be challenging as it requires quite an investment. Consider the most appealing among multiple platforms, hire developers, testers or Quality analyst and, most important, product marketing professionals. But, do you have right tools?

Making it simple to create, choosing from a bunch of really famous Smart phone app generation tool may help. Some prominent tools used by professionals include PhoneGap, Appcelerator/Titanium, Rhomobile and AnscaMobile/Corona.

The principle of these tools is to write in a custom scripting language like JavaScript, HTML, C# or even some language that you've never heard of. Once you have it working the way you want, click a button and it will magically generate versions for iOS and Android or may be even for platforms like Palm, Windows mobile application development etc. It facilitates creation of five, different, software at the cost of one. Submit them to the various app stores and rack money!

Use of Cloud Computing

Cloud is the approaching big thing. In view of the demand for wireless technology, applications that connect to cloud resources are much more likely to be successful than those that run only on the wireless device. The future is in favor of sharing or community apps involving social networking. Business users will benefit from collaboration and data sharing apps. Personal users will gain from remote access apps allowing them to monitor home security systems and social networking.

User Interface

One of the most talked about, but important, feature ignored often is user interface. If observed, Android and iOS have completely different user interfaces. Android makes it comfortable to reach to setting by enabling an icon on the home screen. It also has a most talked about back button, which adds to the functionality; whereas, iOS offers comfort in a different way for instance: animations. Therefore, it becomes a challenge to build across platform software. Development principle says, take advantage of each platform's own unique user interface features.

Performance

Be in user's shoe is the principle here. Consider yourself a user, would you like to stick to an app which takes a more than a few seconds to load or go beyond its home screen every time you start it? Would you consider playing on Facebook had its game- that have high graphics-lagged at the wrong time? It takes very careful planning and implementation to get things to respond quickly and efficiently at all times, especially when the system is stressed. You may need to tweak the database or the methods in which it is accessed if you are storing and accessing large amounts of data and need to access.

Conclusion

Mobile application development indeed is a trend in vogue; however, not every app digs gold. You need a well designed and engaging, showcase app that really stands out in the competition.

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About Turtlejet

Turtlejet is a Louisville Kentucky based IT services and solutions provider that excels at designing, conceiving, developing and deploying solutions in the mobile application development segment. It has formed its niche in mobile application development for cross platform and Windows mobile application development.