Think Beyond Development When Choosing a Mobile Platform

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? 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 chosen mobile app development platforms support multiple approaches simultaneously, then you tend to have greater flexibility to chooses the right model i.e. web, hybrid or native model for every project, based on your specific app development 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?

A recent survey conducted by the Trustwave Global Security Reports indicates that around 95% of the tested mobile applications are considered to be vulnerable due to high percentage of defenselessness for each mobile app. On average every mobile application exhibit 6.5 vulnerabilities. This isn’t too surprising given that 57% of developers have yet to build a mobile app. Hmm. Perhaps your mobile development platform should also offer some security features, especially if you like to work in the cloud.