How To Find The Top Mobile App development company in London in 2023
Mobile App development company in London - Top questions from Google
What is the top mobile app development company in London?
To find the best mobile app development company in London, look to their communication, track-record, and their transparency with you on timelines and cost.
Also, of course it depends also on the type of mobile app you’re going to build or are currently maintaining.
App development has loads of tools, and it’s easy to get lost if you’re new to it all.
Sometimes, a firm who has a lot of knowledge in one tool or software language, may not be an expert in another.
Think of a mobile app development project as building a house from scratch.
After your architecture and design phase, you’d want to keep in close contact with your builders to ensure there’s no confusion over the details.
Newly Built House
And, just like a house build project, you wouldn’t leave your building contractors unattended throughout the project, only to notice all the details they’ve missed on their last day.
This helps to alleviate the worries you may have about the details or features that might be missed during development.
Most software projects follow a project management style called Agile Software Development. Which promotes a continuous feedback loop with stakeholders and smaller iterations of a mobile application, overall, decreasing project risk.
There are some cases where Agile isn’t always implemented, for example in time-sensitive deadlines, but it’s always worth asking why a specific project management style has been chosen.
The best mobile app development company in London, is one who can best explain their project management style, use of technology and value client communication and feedback.
Mobile app developers
When looking for a mobile app developer, we know there are several factors to consider.
If you’re maintaining an existing mobile app, consider the mobile app’s frameworks, libraries and software design patterns used throughout the application and let that lead your search in finding an experienced mobile app developer.
Hiring a mobile app developer who is already familiar with tools you already use, means that onboarding time can be shortened before they can begin to deliver value.
If not, a developer may find themselves figuring out how to use the tools of your project, which means more time will be taken to deliver new and stabilise existing features.
On the other hand, if you are working on a software migration or greenfield project, consider speaking to a mobile app developer who works with different programming languages or in some specialised cases; find a technical architect who can guide you to use the right tools for your project, rather than being guided by what a mobile developer feels comfortable in developing with or chooses to use.
Try to find a tech professional who has a balanced viewpoint on technology choices, and if they show strong dislike towards a framework or library, ask them why.
This consulting phase of a project can have numerous benefits in the long term, to this project and for your own personal development, too.
This is valuable information as it can be reused as you move between different projects over time, and you’re less likely to need an technical architect soon.
It will help you avoid the pitfalls in choosing the wrong tech. Also, it’ll help you understand the advantages and disadvantages of most software tools available.
Also, some technical architects also double as the project’s technical lead developer; to ensure your mobile app is responsive to change, the scale of your business and what’s been delivered, matches specification.
Mobile app development
In mobile app development there are three platforms that are usually considered. iOS for iPhones, iPad and watchOS and Google’s Android for devices such as Samsung, Google, or OnePlus smartphones and Mobile Web.
Native mobile apps are those downloaded from the Google Play or Apple App Store, and web mobile apps are those that are data-driven websites, run via the browser, like Skyscanner, Eurostar or any website that must respond to incoming user data or has a database.
Many years ago, most developers and entrepreneurs alike would rush to create an iPhone mobile app, and every other platform came second, and this is because of the vast market share Apple has, and the ease of aiming to develop for one or two iPhone devices.
Nowadays, this isn’t the case as the most popular phone in 2022, was made by Samsung.
But Apple’s iPhones still account for almost 30% of smartphones used worldwide. Which is impressive; considering they only release around four iPhones yearly.
Mobile Market Share Graph
Though, these statistics shouldn’t make us focus on developing a mobile app for one platform and to exclude the others.
The main factors you should now take into consideration are the mobile app’s features, (e.g. Do I need use of a camera or a microphone? Do my competitors have a mobile web app presence, too?), and the demographic of your users (do they have a high end mobile device? Are they more likely to use a desktop computer when using our services? What mobile devices does your target customer own?) these and many other factors should more so drive the decision of what platforms to target.
Or if you’re already set on developing a native mobile app, there are several tools that allow you to have a single codebase to maintain all mobile app platforms. Such as Xamarin, a free full-stack tool from Microsoft that utilises .NET to deliver native apps for all mobile platforms.
Another favourite in native app development is React Native, developed by Meta to help you deliver cross-platform User Interfaces (UIs).
The idea behind using React Native, is that you have access to, or have already built an API that will provide data, as React Native is only a UI library.
App developers
Finding a great app developer should begin with great communication and one that values customer feedback.
Secondly, when you’re supporting an existing app, look to the existing tools you’ve got in your technology stack and the software architectural patterns used in your app’s code.
After you know your tech stack and its architecture, use this information to create the interview questions to your incoming app developers. You can ask more about their experience and what they like or dislike about the tools in your tech stack.
In other cases, maybe you’ve seen a specific technology online and are already convinced of the advantages it can bring to your business.
In these instances, when interviewing developers who have experience in other frameworks, ask them what they like about your chosen tool, in comparison to others which are seen on their CV.
For example, imagine you’re looking for C# .NET developers and you find a developer who is proficient in C# and Node.js. Feel free to ask them about their experiences in working with both, specifically, what difficulties they faced.
This can give you an insight, not only into how the developer’s experience and the knowledge of the tech, but most importantly, how they overcome difficulties in an app’s code.
It’s also understood that app developers tend to use tools they are already familiar with, which is fine if they are the right tools for the job.
But some developers may try to use newer trendsetting technologies, in order to gain more experience with a niche framework or library. The downside, that there may not be as many developers with experience to take over the project, when you wish to change developers.
Instead, consult with a trusted, balanced app developer or technical architect who will advise on what tech tools to avoid and which to implement, given your circumstances.
How much does it cost to develop a mobile app?
UK Pound Notes
Smaller mobile apps can cost between £20,000 - £60,000 while larger enterprise-sized projects, can cost upwards of over £100,000.
There are several factors which underpin these prices.
Firstly, great mobile app design should happen before any mobile app is developed.
That way you’ll stay ahead of the curve with a mobile app that not only looks beautiful but is already familiar to your staff members when they begin using it.
Thus, staff members will require minimal training, this is one of the ways you’ll receive a return on investment from great UX design.
When another agency cuts corners on great user experience design, it will mean that you have a mobile app that your staff members don’t understand how to use, or they may try their best not to use it, because the mobile app is difficult to use.
You want an application that already feels familiar to your users, or else they’ll just go back to how they were doing it before.
The best mobile apps you use right now, are those that didn’t need a tutorial, they just made everything simpler.
Another factor in cost, is seen after the mobile app has been delivered, the ease of maintenance. To prevent yourself being locked into an expensive maintenance contract for servers and code, ask your agency to ensure they are using widely used tech tools, so your company can find talent on demand, after the project finishes.
Linked to the point above, another factor is code quality.
Let’s imagine your business mobile app was a success; and you wish to roll it out to other departments within your company.
If the code wasn’t developed to be responsive to change and those developers began to sacrifice accuracy. Then, there may still be a lot of development work to do, under the hood, in time to come when you begin to scale.
Web and app development companies
When hiring a web and app development company to build software that connects with your business’ internal systems or applications, the agency you hire should have questions about the current technology you use.
If you’re beginning a greenfield project, the agency should explore the features and the reason for the software’s requirement, too, as their understanding of the wider domain, will help in delivering a better product.
Plus, your hired software agency should find out whether it is possible to integrate the new app with your existing tech, with the tools they have recommended.
In addition, the software company you’ve found should explain to you the advantages and disadvantages of the technology choice.
This is because some developers choose to use bleeding-edge open-source technologies, which are sometimes not as mature as other software tools, which have larger community support.
This pitfall can be expensive to remedy in future, as some bleeding-edge tools, become deprecated and stop being supported by the wider software eco-system.
Plus, it’s easier for developers to misinterpret online documentation, as the API for some beta tools may change often. This results in a mobile app’s code being unnecessarily complicated.
Instead, the best idea is to use software libraries and frameworks that are mature, have a great track record and reputation in industry.
Though, there should be a middle-ground, as some libraries and frameworks which were great roughly a decade ago, are still being used, but are now obsolete and continuing to use them can cause a significant rise in technical debt.
This might be because a company’s management were afraid of the technological change or some stakeholders were not convinced by the reason to change when cost is attached.
All mobile app projects should be taken on a case-by-case basis, but usually when software development has moved on because of an older tool’s limitations, this can present itself as slower deliverables and higher technical debt.
A great example of this is jQuery, a great library once upon a time to ensure JavaScript behaviour is predictable in all browsers. But, nowadays, jQuery is frowned upon as newer browser APIs have caused most of the library to become useless and newer libraries like React, don’t require constant update of a HTML file, and as a result, features are delivered quicker, without jQuery.
Summary
To find the best mobile app development company in London, it begins with great communication and transparency on deliverables.
Look for a company that values feedback, is willing to be responsive to change and respects the budget of the project.
An agency should not deliver a long-term project entirely in the dark, and away from you; instead, they should embrace demoing their progress to you.
Most of the time, finding a great lead developer from the agency will help you navigate the pitfalls associated with choosing the wrong tech, especially in trying to avoid some of the bleeding-edge technology, which has been here for a short time, and you’re unsure of its future.
In larger projects, consider a technical architect, which sometimes doubles as a technical lead and helps to be a source of direction for developers on a project.
For mobile app development, consider your target demographics and mobile app features, before deciding on prioritising a native platform over the web.
If you know in the long term, you’ll want to be on every native mobile platform, consider uniting some of the code with tools like Xamarin and React Native.
Building a mobile application or web application should be a project completed to best practices while ensuring code modules have a high test coverage with a development team that values a pragmatic approach.
That’s why Cypher Digital, is your partner to accelerate digital growth, the right way.
The key ingredient to our process is collaboration. We work closely with you to really understand and get a feel for what you have in mind to ensure your digital growth is exponential and consistent after delivery.
We harness the rapidly evolving environment by having our focus on the evolution of trends within the UX landscape. We ensure that everything we deliver is modern, original and has a sense of familiarity.