This mobile app development question usually attracts different types of answers, views, and opinions from various experts in the industry. It can be as simple as, it depends, or as detailed as between four to six months. Most interested parties asking this type of question are looking to build an app on a tight schedule.
In this article, you will learn some of the factors that can affect the length time of your mobile app development project. There are a handful of factors that can influence your mobile app development timeline and here are some considerations you should make.
Industry Timelines
When comparing some of the apps on the app stores, you can easily tell one that took more time from the ones that took less time. key players in the industry will tell you that some apps take weeks to create, while others take months to build. The difference between the two is evident in their presentation.
Building a great app (one that is beautiful, intuitive, fast, bug-free, and does not crash) consumes a lot of resources, especially time. It will take you thousands to hundreds of thousands of hours to build great apps like Facebook and Twitter. Adding that wow factor on your app takes hard work and time.
The industry sees app development way beyond the launch process. The perspective is that of a business, where you have to ensure that it grows to the original idea you had in mind. This is the best approach one should take in building the first version of an app.
Factors That Can Influence Your App Development Timelines
App Scope
The App scope factors in the amount of work that is required to build the first version of your app. The time to build app features and add functionalities in apps are not the same. An app that has too many features will take more time to build compared with a minimalist app. The type of feature can also determine your general timeline, for instance integrating AI or AR in your app will take more time.
When it comes to user experience key design elements such as UI/UX and Responsive design need to be implemented. Your app needs to respond well to different screen sizes and display resolutions. Your design will be limited to the tools that your app platform provides. You will also have to consider the time it will take to develop an app according to the platform standards.
One of the challenges that most developers face when building an app is scope creep. Working on a project that is not well defined, documented, and controlled attracts changes. The continuous or uncontrolled growth of the project’s scope increases the time required to build the app.
The app scope is determined by the quality of the app that is required. If you wish to achieve a quality similar to that of Facebook, then you will need to invest in more time to give your app the look and feel. The key here is to have a much smaller app scope if you wish to spend less time building your app.
Resource & Budget
Your mobile app development timeline can be influenced by your budget and resources. The app budget directly affects the resources, especially when you are doing an in-house mobile app development project. Many companies do not have the right resources to build an app, so the project may have to be delayed at some point during the process.
Your budget and resources, just like a runway, will determine how far your app development project can go. The budget can dictate the timeline of your app development process based on the quality of the app. Low-quality apps are cheap to build and take less time, on the other hand, high-quality digital products tend to consume more money and time.
Therefore, your budget and availability of resources greatly influences the length of time of your mobile app development goal. The number of features you want on your app will directly influence your budget, so keeping core features in your app will drastically reduce your timeline.
Size, Skills, & Expertise
An app developed by a team of professionals will take less time than one that is being built by individual freelancers. Hiring an agency or creating a team to develop your app delegates the tasks in the app scope thus reducing the timeline.
There are different skills required in designing and developing an app for your business, so it will take longer if you are dealing with someone who has only app development skills. Someone who is the designer, programmer, quality assurance personnel, and tester all at the same time will take more time.
Expertise can also affect the length time of your mobile app development project in the sense that the level of skill of the developer will determine how fast you can build your app. Hiring experts will reduce the average app building time in the industry.
If you are planning to go with individual freelancers, then you better look for one that is up for the task. Companies that use the help of agencies get to enjoy the benefits of building their apps according to their set timelines. The abilities and size of your workforce will determine the quality of the product and time to build it.
App Development Process
The mobile app development methodology you choose will also affect the timeline of your project. Most app development processes are built to reduce the time and cost of the project. Building an app without following a market standard will leave your project to chance. Working with a solid process adds makes your app development more fluid and effective.
Conclusion
How Long it will take to build your first version native mobile app will greatly depend on the factors we have discussed. On average it will take you between two weeks and six months to build an app for your business.
About 5280 Software LLC:
5280 Software LLC, located in Denver, Colorado is a premier software development firm. We have worked with a variety of clients over the years. Our expert team of developers have helped small to medium sized businesses, startups, as well as enterprise level clients such as RingCentral. If you are looking to build a mobile app, we can deliver flawless apple ios mobile apps as well as android mobile apps. These apps can be designed for smartphones, ipad and android tablets, wearable such as smart watches, and even smart TVs. The power of a well designed app to gain new customers is key in today’s market. We help execute your app development to perfection. A website is powerful tool for branding and showcasing the products or services you offer. We can build you a WordPress, E-Commerce, or custom coded website at competitive prices.
Once the site is launched, or if you already have a website, we offer Search Engine Optimization Services to achieve higher search engine rankings. Contact us today with your website’s URL and we will put together a free SEO analysis of your site with pricing and timeline to get your site ranked on the first page of Google and other search engines. Our experienced and dedicated team has a proven track record and provide regular reporting on tasks completed and keyword movements during your SEO project. We help businesses and companies gain rankings on all the major search engines.
Many businesses use multiple software packages and services to run their business. We offer custom software development services to streamline your business process. We have developed custom dashboards that can pull data from multiple points and display all this information in one place. Do you use an off the shelf CRM? 5280 Software LLC can customize this CRM or even build a custom CRM from the ground up based on your requirements. If you need a custom Windows desktop or Mac desktop application, feel free to reach out to us.
We can improve the understanding of your business and marketing outreach through the use of analytics. We offer a complete solution with the latest technologies to solve your obstacles and scale your customer base. From the start of any project (and at every stage, step, phase, and release) we focus on the client and always ask for feedback while we develop the project. Creating a quality solution for a business or startup is our end goal. Our strategy and processes are based on solid communication with our clients.
All projects are built according to a clearly defined scope of work. If you need assistance with scope creation, we offer this as a service. This scope of work will be used in the provided development contract. Make sure whomever you hire for your project provides you a development contract with clearly defined pricing, development timeline, payment schedule, and deliverables. We would like to learn about your project and help refine your scope of work.
If you have an idea for a mobile app, please emails us your full name or company name and we will send you a signed NDA. We send NDAs to all potential clients to guarantee your ideas and documents will be kept in confidence. Once an NDA is in place, feel free to book a free discovery call. You can also fill out our app development questionnaire to share the details of your project before your call. We are the leading firm specializing in building solutions for the web, iphones and other smart devices including IOT. Our company can create a custom solution on a variety of platforms using the most current popular programming languages. Weather it is a cross platform hybrid app or a natively programmed solution, we have you covered!
We look forward to speaking with you about your project. Learn why clients around the world trust working with 5280 Software LLC. We support our clients from mockups, sketch, wireframes, and graphic design, development, product launch and ASO when we publish your app, and even code updates at a competitive price point. Feel free to visit us on our social sites Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, or send us a LinkedIn connection request to learn about our offers to get answers to your questions. Let us turn your idea into reality!
