Mobile Application Maintenance: Expectations vs. Reality
Building and deploying a mobile application does not mean your work is over. Without regular and scheduled mobile application maintenance, your app is bound to run into problems.
It’s like buying a new car and skipping the regular oil change. Sooner or later, your new vehicle will pack up and end up in a scrapyard. In 2019, Google removed over 1,000 mobile applications from the Playstore for being malicious and dangerous. Apple also took a similar step recently by removing over 42,000 mobile applications from its China App Store. Far back in 2016, Apple also removed about 50,000 obsolete apps from the App Store.
By investing in long-term mobile application maintenance, you are preventing your mobile apps from being purged from the App Store and Google Play Store.
There are best practices that must be adhered to when it comes to mobile app maintenance;
Adding New Features
The mobile app environment is quite fluid, and adding new features must be part of your maintenance process. Study how users are interacting with your mobile apps and what new features can bring about better user experience.
By adding new features based on user response and feedback will keep your app highly rated among users.
Keep Up Trends Via UI Update
Your mobile app cannot wear the same look in the long-term. There should always be moves to improve the user interface.
You will have to consider the trends and user’s preferences in developing a user interface. When your mobile app is deployed, you should know how users relate to the interface and work on improvements.
Carry Out Scheduled Maintenance
With a scheduled maintenance culture, your app will always be up to date and at its best. You’ll not miss out on bugs and issues. An essential aspect of scheduled maintenance is informing your users well ahead of any impending maintenance and downtime.
Don’t leave your users frustrated with a buggy app nor uninformed downtime.
Follow Up on Your App Performance
You’ll need to monitor your mobile app loading time, bugs, analytics, and responsiveness. You’ll need to keep an eye on your retention rate, engagement, and conversion rates. This will help you in your mobile application maintenance, as you’ll know what to look out for.
It’s about putting your mobile app in its best condition both in the short and long term.
Knowing The Cost of Mobile App Maintenance
It’s a necessary evil but comes at a cost. However, there is a need to know the cost well ahead to be able to prepare.
Nonetheless, there’s no actual cost on what your app maintenance will cost. It’s a factor of features, functionality, size, licenses, and expertise.
The golden rule is setting aside about 20% of what it cost to develop the mobile app for maintenance annually. More so, mobile maintenance costs might climb as high as 50% in the first year while it returns to the 20% figure in the subsequent years.
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