Mobile app development is a booming industry that offers many opportunities for businesses to reach and engage customers, provide valuable services, and grow their revenue. However, developing a mobile app is not a one-time project. It requires ongoing maintenance and support to ensure the app is bug-free, secure, up-to-date, and user-friendly. This article will discuss the importance of mobile app maintenance and support, the challenges and costs involved, and the best practices to handle them effectively.
Why is Mobile App Maintenance and Support Important?
Mobile app maintenance and support are essential for several reasons:
User satisfaction: Users expect mobile apps to work smoothly, fast, and reliably. They also want apps to have new features, improvements, and updates that meet their changing needs and preferences. If an app fails to deliver a satisfactory user experience, users will quickly uninstall or switch to a competitor’s app. Therefore, mobile app maintenance and support are crucial for retaining and attracting users, increasing loyalty, and enhancing reputation.
Security: Mobile apps are vulnerable to various cyberattacks, such as malware, hacking, data breaches, and phishing. These attacks can compromise the app’s functionality, performance, data integrity, and user privacy. They can also damage the app developer’s credibility and reputation, resulting in legal liabilities and penalties. Therefore, mobile app maintenance and support are vital for protecting the app from security threats, applying patches and fixes, and complying with the latest security standards and regulations.
Compatibility: Mobile apps need to be compatible with different devices, operating systems, platforms, and third-party services that users may use. These factors are constantly evolving and changing, so mobile apps must adapt accordingly. For example, when a new version of iOS or Android is released, mobile apps must be updated to ensure they work correctly on the new system. Similarly, when introducing a new device model or screen size, mobile apps must be optimized to fit the new display. Therefore, mobile app maintenance and support are essential for ensuring that the app is compatible with the latest technologies and trends.
What are the Challenges and Costs of Mobile App Maintenance and Support?
Mobile app maintenance and support are challenging tasks. They involve various challenges and costs that mobile app developers need to consider and manage:
Complexity: Mobile apps are complex software products that consist of many components, features, functionalities, integrations, dependencies, and codebases. Maintaining and supporting such complex products requires a lot of technical expertise, skills, tools, resources, and time. It also requires a clear understanding of the app’s architecture, design, logic, performance metrics, user feedback, analytics data, etc.
Variability: Mobile apps operate in a dynamic and diverse environment that is influenced by many factors beyond the developer’s control. These factors include user behavior, device specifications, network conditions, platform updates, security threats, market trends, etc. These factors can cause unexpected errors, bugs, crashes, compatibility issues, performance degradation, etc., that require immediate attention and resolution.
Cost: Mobile app maintenance and support are not free. They incur various costs that depend on the app's size, complexity, quality, and popularity. These costs include development costs (such as salaries, tools, licenses, etc.), hosting charges (such as servers, cloud services, bandwidth, etc.), testing costs (such as quality assurance, bug fixing, etc.), marketing costs (such as advertising, promotion, etc.), legal costs (such as compliance, licensing, etc.), etc. According to some estimates1, mobile app maintenance can cost up to 20% of the initial development cost per year.
What are the Best Practices for Mobile App Maintenance and Support?
Mobile app maintenance and support are challenging and costly but also necessary and beneficial for development companies. To handle them effectively and efficiently, here are some best practices to follow:
Plan: Mobile app maintenance and support should not be an afterthought or a reactive measure but rather a proactive and strategic part of the mobile app development process. Mobile app developers should plan for the maintenance and support activities and requirements they will need to perform and provide throughout the app’s lifecycle. They should also allocate sufficient budget and resources for these activities and conditions and monitor them regularly.
Use an experienced partner: Mobile app maintenance and support require a lot of technical expertise and skills that may not be available in-house for some mobile app development companies. In such cases, it may be wise to outsource these tasks to an experienced partner who can offer reliable and professional mobile app maintenance and support services at an affordable cost. Such a partner can help with various aspects of mobile app maintenance and support, such as bug fixing, security updates, performance optimization, feature enhancement, compatibility testing, etc.
Document your strategy: Mobile app maintenance and support are complex and multifaceted processes that involve many stakeholders and activities. To ensure that these processes are well-organized and well-executed, it is essential to document the strategy and plan for mobile app maintenance and support. This document should include the goals and objectives of mobile app maintenance and support, the roles and responsibilities of the team members, the tools and methods to be used, the schedule and frequency of the maintenance and support tasks, the metrics and indicators to measure the results, etc.
Test for UX: Mobile app maintenance and support are not only about fixing technical issues but also about improving the user experience (UX) of the app. Mobile app developers should test their app for UX regularly, using various methods such as user feedback, analytics data, usability testing, etc. They should also implement the necessary changes and improvements to enhance the app’s UX, such as redesigning the UI, adding new features, simplifying the navigation, etc.
Remain compliant: Mobile app maintenance and support are also about ensuring the app complies with the latest standards and regulations that apply to its industry, market, and audience. Mobile app developers should keep themselves updated on the relevant laws, policies, guidelines, and best practices that affect their apps, such as data protection, privacy, security, accessibility, etc. They should also ensure that their app adheres to these requirements and avoids violations or penalties.
Conclusion
Mobile app maintenance and support are essential for development companies to ensure their app is bug-free, secure, up-to-date, and user-friendly. However, mobile app maintenance and support are also challenging and costly tasks that require a lot of technical expertise, skills, tools, resources, and time. To handle them effectively and efficiently, mobile app developers should follow some best practices such as planning, using an experienced partner, documenting their strategy, testing for UX, and remaining compliant.
If you are looking for a no-code mobile app development and management platform to help you with mobile app maintenance and support, you should check out Appabrik. Appabrik is a cloud-based platform that offers high-quality and speedy mobile app development, operation, and analysis in a one-stop solution. Appabrik allows you to customize your app with basic and original features, ensure compatibility with different devices and platforms, monitor performance and user feedback, update security and functionality easily, and much more. Appabrik is the ideal solution for businesses that want to grow and optimize their mobile apps without hassle or high costs.