With the change in the way people consume information, any person is likely to ask any company to provide them with all the information they are looking for about its products and services. An effective communication strategy is therefore to get directly into your prospects’ mobile devices, so that you can present them your offer with a single touch of the finger, without going through a mobile browser. Creating an application is now within the reach of anyone, but you can also call upon a mobile application development agency that will precisely meet your specifications.
What is a mobile application?
To put a mobile application online, you have to go through a download platform such as Google Play Store (Android) or App Store (iOS). If you want your mobile application to be distributed on one of these platforms, you must respect certain rules for putting it online.
For example, certain themes are banned from Google Play Store and App Store:
- any inappropriate content: nudity, pornography and all types of sexual content any type of hate speech, discrimination or racism, any form of violence, threat or harassment, or any content concerning the use or sale of firearms, drugs, tobacco or alcohol.
- endangerment of minors: pedophilia or exposure to various inappropriate content under the guise of a children’s application.
- illegal activities such as selling drugs or selling prescription drugs without a prescription.
- certain types of financial transactions such as binary options or crypto-currency mining.
Others are highly regulated, such as gambling or personal loans. In any case, a mobile application, as soon as it is published, must respect both the rules of the download platform and the laws in force in all the countries in which it is distributed.
Update your mobile application
A mobile application must be updated regularly, for several reasons. First, updates allow to correct bugs and malfunctions of an application. Indeed, it happens that errors in the development of the mobile application or compatibility problems with certain devices or certain versions of the operating system prevent you from enjoying an optimal user experience. An update can thus put an end to slowdowns or critical errors that could drive your customers away from your application.
Then, it is easy to collect user reviews on your mobile application via reviews published on download platforms. You can also set up an automatic notification that appears on your users’ screen after a certain predefined action and redirects them to the download platform to give their feedback. This permanent monitoring of customer feedback on your application will allow you to identify areas for improvement, as well as content or features to be added or removed. This way, your updates will be able to take into account your users’ remarks.
Finally, updating your mobile application will simply allow you to add new features or modify the way some of them work. It is natural not to release the most complete application possible from the beginning, and this can even contribute to your versioning strategy. Indeed, you can very well release your mobile application for the first time with the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) features, in other words, the features that will be the most important to make your application functional from the start and to make it attractive to your customers. Later, taking into account your human and technical resources, but also following the feedback from users, you can add new features.
Mobile application or web application?
The choice between a mobile application and a web application is a recurring question that every business owner has to ask himself during the process of digitalization of his company. It is important to know that both types of applications have advantages and disadvantages that we will review.
Some details about mobile applications
Mobile applications must be downloaded hard onto your mobile device and occupy a certain portion of your device’s memory. They require dedicated development time, to be doubled if they are released on both iOS and Android. Mobile apps can be uninstalled. As we have seen above, a mobile application undergoes a number of updates throughout its life, which therefore require the installation of additional data that each take up a little more space on your mobile device.
Mobile applications have the advantage of being able to offer content that is different from that of your website: you can therefore create a complementarity between these two communication tools. In any case, your mobile application cannot be a simple mirror link to your website, as this is forbidden by the download platforms.
It is possible that your mobile application does not require permanent access to the Internet, especially if all the data is stored within your application. However, if the data is stored in a cloud, continuous access to the Internet will be required. Some mobile applications offer to download certain data so that it is available offline, which has the advantage of giving you access to the data you use most often.
Finally, as far as the promotion of your mobile application is concerned, it is usually done through mobile advertising agencies that offer advertising spaces directly in the mobile applications when they broadcast advertising. Download platforms are also a good way to promote your application if it has a good natural referencing.
Some details about web applications
Web applications are not directly present on your mobile device. They are accessible from a URL that you must enter in your mobile browser. Moreover, they require less development time because you just have to configure a responsive design version of its website. One of their biggest advantages is that they do not occupy any space on your mobile device. However, you will usually have to open your mobile browser and type in their URL or click on the shortcut you have configured beforehand. In addition, your web application will not be able to offer any new content compared to your website, as it is only a version adapted to mobile devices.
Unlike mobile applications, web applications require permanent access to the Internet. Indeed, access to your web application depends on the proper functioning of your mobile browser. Moreover, you will not be updated, but you will not be able to store anything on your mobile device.
The promotion of your web application goes through the classic means of promotion of a website: natural or paid referencing, display ads (banners, inserts), sponsored publications on social networks, etc.
Would like to get more information mobile and web application development? Contact us today. Our experience team are waiting for your mobile and web application development projects to discuss.
