If you’re a small or medium enterprise business owner, then you are aware of the benefits of having a mobile app for your online store. Some business owners can afford to hire the services of
app development companies while others can’t.
For those who can’t afford app development companies, this might be the opportunity for some personal development. Instead of hiring a company, you may as well learn how to develop a mobile app of your own.
There are a variety of ways to go about developing your app, but before you start calling yourself a developer, you may want to familiarize yourself with some of the more innovative mobile development options. Here’s a look at some of the available platforms:
1. Apple iOS
Before you can use the iOS platform create an app, you’ll need to pay a fee (approximately $99). If you consider the functionality and elegance of the program, you’ll come to see that it really isn’t much. The iOS Developer Center will provide you with an extensive collection of tools, debugging tests, guides, and tips that’ll allow you create an app for any purpose.
2. Android
Thanks to Android’s free software development kit, just about anyone can become a developer. It is the perfect tool for the business owner looking to grow personally and build his/her app. You can find source codes, developer tools, samples, as well as emulators for app testing all in the kit. And in case you’re starting to feel overwhelmed, there are also instructions, technical articles, and how-to videos on how to develop an app. Before you can begin distributing apps on Google Play the Android marketplace, you’ll need to pay a one-time registration fee of $25.
3. Windows
Even though this isn’t the largest platform out there, it has one of the most accessible user interfaces. The Windows Phone development platform gives developers all the necessary documentation filled with the best practices to help market their app. One of the reasons the windows platform is so great is that there’s little need to worry about your app getting rejected after you’ve put in time in its creation. Windows also provide concise documentation that states what will fly through its approval process and what won't.
Here are 4 tools to help you become a better mobile app developer
Seeing that you have a better understanding of the available platforms, you can go ahead to start thinking about the tools you’ll need for creating the mobile app. Chances are you know very little about programming if you had gone with top app development companies you’d have had access to their team of programmers and developers.
Fortunately, you don’t have to be able to speak in code or be a programmer to create an app. There are countless app developmental tools (that have probably been created by top app development companies) that’ll help make your job easier. Here’s a look at some that may be useful:
AppMakr is a browser-based platform allows you to create your iPhone app quickly and easily. You can utilize social networking feeds and existing content to generate all kinds of approach for your app. Some of the features of AppMakr include location-aware GeoRSS, JavaScript capabilities, push notifications, and custom CSS.
Even though it is free to use, there’s a $79 monthly fee subscription for each app that gives you access to even more features. AppMakr is available on iOS, Android, and the Windows platforms.
This is a smartphone and tablet publishing platform that you can use to create an app presence, as well as manage, said presence on all mobile devices that are popular such as the iPhone, iPad, Android as well as HTML5 apps. GENWI delivers rich photos, video, audio and other types of interactivity.
With GENWI, you can choose to modify your apps as many times as you like. Additionally, you can also add different types of revenue generating capabilities such coupons, ads and in-app subscriptions to your app. GENWI gives you the first three months as a trial, but after that, the pricing will vary according to the features includes.
This London-based platform is celebrated because it is so easy to use. You can use it create Android, iOS and Windows apps. It gives you a chance to be flexible while designing the app. Mippin can also be used to distribute your app to the Android, iOS, Windows and even the Amazon stores. Mippin is a bit expensive with Native apps costing about $999 per year so it may be suitable for mobile app development company than a small business owner looking to cut cost and build new skills.
Say you’ve got an e-commerce store and you’ve been thinking of taking said store to the mobile sphere. One tool that can make that possible is MobiCart. MobiCart allows for payments via PayPal meaning that any consumer or business with an email address can conveniently, securely and quickly receive and send payments online.
Conclusion
The importance of a mobile app to a business cannot be overemphasized. If you wish to maximize your profits, then sooner rather than later, you’ll want to get a mobile app. Not every business owner can afford to get top app development companies to help them with their mobile app.
But instead of despairing, you can consider this an opportunity for growth. You’ll get the chance to create a mobile app to help expand your business, and learn some mobile app development skills that’ll allow you grow as an entrepreneur.
