What are the stages of Mobile App Development Lifecycle?

App development most often can be long and tricky—thanks to wrong hands. Effective app development goes through six phases of mobile development cycle. What you expect and what you get is very much a part of the six phases of app development lifecycle. Luckily, you have some tools that will help you go through each phase. A typical mobile app development cycle will look like:

Stage 1: Plan

Planning the app involves answering fundamental questions including who the app will benefit the most, what purpose it could fulfil for you or your business, what is the strategy adopted in building the app and so on. Building an app just for the idea of it will take you nowhere. Planning must be also on flexible terms and respond to fluctuations until you get the product core functions alright.

Stage 2: Design

The design aspect of the app should focus on the functionality and the user interface (UI). The app, at the end of the day, boils down to three things: how the app actually functions and what users can do with it; what users see in the app and what features they interact with and how the user interacts with the features.

Stage 3: Develop

The development phases comprises two parts: prototyping and the actual production of the app. Prototyping allows the app developer to test their initial/preliminary ideas, and check for the missing pieces before entering into the design phase. For a small business or an individual, no-code or low development platforms would be fine. For enterprises, custom app development gives them a range of features and options for scaling up the product later. A broad idea may necessitate future enhancements, revisions or rollouts post product release.

Stage 4: Test and QA

QA testing is the most important phase before the app gets off the ground. Unfunctional links, images that doesn’t load or actions that causes the app to freeze can be off-putting to the users post launch. An app that doesn’t go through adequate testing will receive poor user ratings and comments as one that’s either half-baked or incomplete.

Stage 5: Deploy

In this stage the app goes live, and is usually hosted on Google Playstore or Apple Store which charges a percentage of the sales price in exchange of its service. The app can follow any pricing mechanism such as single purchase, freemium, subscription or free-to-download ecommerce portal.

Stage 6: Maintain

This is often the most overlooked stage as any annual maintenance plan would incur extra charges. Maintenance covers technical updates, technical fixes, Source code repository & versioning, App feedback & crash monitoring and Server & Performance monitoring, among others. If maintenance is neglected, the app will soon lose its relevance and intended build purpose.

Abi-Tech deploys a robust development lifecycle in the area of mobile app development services. Looking for the most trusted mobile app development company in Singapore? Then look no further than Abi-Tech.