Mobile app development industry is now competitive more than ever and it is going to expand and be more competitive in upcoming years. Of course experienced app developers are getting better and better at the jobs but new app developers find this industry and career path quite difficult because of the harsh competition and narrow margin of error.
Thousands of new app developers release their apps in app stores like Google Play Store and iTunes everyday but the majority of those apps and developers remain unnoticed because of mistakes they make during the development and marketing phase. Those mistakes ruin their apps and reputation, and take them away from success. Following are some most common mistakes app developers make and you can learn here how you can avoid those mistakes.
Trying to Build a Suite
Although enterprises have been trying to build apps with multiple features like an entire suite but individual developers and especially new developers cannot possibly do that effectively because of the obvious reasons. It is better to develop focused apps which can solve one problem effectively instead of trying to pack everything in a single useless app that cannot solve a single problem.
Apps should be built for a single purpose and developers must consider every aspect of that problem before the start building it. Lots of features in a single app sometimes confuse people and that’s something you should absolutely avoid.
Ignoring Target Audience
This is one of the worst mistakes developers make frequently; as a developer, you must understand and accept the fact that you are building apps for other people and you should create apps that other people want. You cannot develop apps for everyone and you cannot satisfy everybody because people have different needs, preferences and requirements.
You must define your target audience even before defining the features of your apps. First you should know what kind of issues people face and what type of solution they want. By doing your homework beforehand, you will be creating a product that already has demand in the industry and this is a big advantage.
Not Marketing the App
However the main job of a developer is building app but unfortunately your job does end here. Releasing your app or game on relevant app store is not enough because the app is not going to sell itself. You need to market the app and advertise it to your target audience. If you are not lucky enough to have a separate marketing team then you need to invest in ads.
You can buy ads from other apps so they would present your app inside their own. However, this strategy is not for everyone because of the cost involved. Social media like Facebook, Twitter and others are a great way to promote your app so thousands of people can discover it. The best thing about social media is you can use it for free.
Not Releasing Updates
Even if you are confident your app does what it is suppose to do, there would be people who would be unsatisfied with the performance and feature of your app. Now, here comes the tricky part. Your job doesn’t end with the development process, it doesn’t end with marketing, it doesn’t end with monitoring the performance of the app but it is also part of your job to improve your app according to your users’ preference and fix any bug they find.
What Are 1000 Apps Doing to Reduce Their Bugs to Zero?
Down to Zero is a practical guide to solving bugs. Our team has been developing mobile apps for over a decade and we'd like to share some tips we've picked up along the way.
There are many ways to know what your customers are saying about your app and how the app is working on different scenarios. Bugfender is a great tool that helps developers understand and reproduce the bugs on specific devices by providing them logs in real-time. This way, developers can debug their apps and fix issues to increase performance, functionality and stability.
Copying Other Ideas
There are mainly two reasons why you shouldn’t copy other apps; first of all, depending on what contents are copying, it falls under intellectual property theft and your could face legal issues because of copyright infringement. Secondly, unless you successfully create a better version of another popular app (which is quite difficult), copying other apps is just waste of time.
It is always better opting for original contents and genuine ideas rather than stealing other people’s ideas. However, if you think a particular app could do better, you can try to create a similar yet better version.
Not Selecting the Right Platform
New app developers usually make this mistake because of their insufficient knowledge of the mobile app development industry. For example, some new app developers select iOS apps just because they think monetizing from iOS apps is way easier than Android and other platforms. This is true for some cases and wrong for others; there is no universal formula to determine which platform is better than others.
There are many factors which decide this and developers must consider those factors before starting their app. The most influential factor is your target audience. Other factors are type of app, compatible devices, geographical location of the audience and others.
Testing Your Own App
This is a common mistake that is not usually taken seriously. A developer’s job is developing app instead of tasting them. Of course, a developer could be tester too but it is almost impossible to test and find flaws on your own app. You have made it perfect as a developer and you are not going to find any issue and you are not going to successfully perform any testing other than functional testing.
In other words, you would be thinking just inside the box and a fresh mind could help here. However, sometimes developers cannot afford professional tester so another great and cost efficient way is using smart logging tools and services like Bugfender.
How Bugfender Could Help You Make Your Apps Better?
Bugfender provides developers insights regarding their apps on different devices so they can see the activities and events logs in real-time and for any remote device. Developers can remotly monitor behavior of specific devices and turn off the feature for devices on which the app is working fine. Actually Bugfender is the best companion tool to beta testing because it allows developers to find and fix bugs in their apps even before their users find out.
