Apps have enriched people’s lives with innumerable ways to facilitate routine tasks. Developers are free to experiment and innovate like never before in developing a mobile solution that benefits the society. So, basically, the App Store can be regarded as the ecosystem for millions of innovators and more than a billion users.
But the addressing point here is that how to get started. There is a substantial difference between ideating and executing. People often fail when they are asked to put their ideas into action. A simplified plan of action, knowing the essentials and goals, resources required and guidelines that the App Store needs you to comply with are some of the points of consideration.
Pay close attention to the upcoming points if you want your app to outperform and get featured on the App Store.
You can also check out the official guidelines prescribed by Apple Inc. covering sections like Safety, Performance, Business, Design, and Legal, here.
Ideate and draft
The foremost aspect you got to pay attention to is the app idea and its purpose. You need to be clear about app goals, issues it resolves, the audience it caters to and last but not the least, what makes your app different. This means you got to innovate with something or the other if you want your product to stand out.
Creating a rough draft about the features and the goals you want to achieve will surely help you in transferring your thoughts to the iOS app development company you wish to connect with.
Market and competitor research
Conduct a thorough research about the market and companies that have apps same as yours. Doing so will give you an idea of how the existing players are marketing their apps, what measures you need to take in order to outclass them and what marketing mediums they use to convince the intended crowd. Also, you’ll get an idea of how they make money and their revenue models.
Build a wireframe
Wireframe, in the technology world, is regarded as the outlook of how the app will work. Basically, it gives you an idea of how users will interact with your app and how well your iOS app developers have worked. The features, options and controls, which you wish to include can be demonstrated and tested at an early stage for their viability and effectiveness.
Designing the app
Next is the design of the app you wish to build. It has been inferred from various studies that Apple users like clean, simple and easy-to-use designs. Although it is entirely up to you and your design partner to shape the app screens, navigation and other controls, there are certain design guidelines from Apple that you, as an iOS app developer, need to consider.
Most popular are the following-
- Copycats- don’t copy design, rather work and implement your own ideas
- Minimum features- don’t just repackage your app’s content, rather include beyond the ordinary
- Extensions- help screens and settings interface ought to be there
- Spam- avoid categories that have reached saturation
App development
Once you finalize the design, it’s time for the development teams to take over, which includes both front-end development team as well as back-end development team. The design team of the iOS app development company needs to coordinate with the developers so that a seamless product can be outputted. While the front-end team works on developing codes to create different design elements for the app, the back-end professionals work on its server management- controlling how the app will work.
It’s important to make sure that you include legitimate tools and licensed extensions within your app to get your app through the App Store test. The test conducted by the team of Apple professionals is quite vigorous and detailed; therefore, it is recommended to have all the necessary aspects secured as per the formal documentation.
Test, test and keep testing
Developers are required to prepare error-free apps, which involves rigorous testing of each and every feature and functionality incorporated into the app. Make sure the app flow is sublime, and at no point in time, there is a lag while parsing the data for display. Sluggish apps are likely to be dismissed in the first place. Hence, it becomes even more important for you to test the app thoroughly and be sure that everything runs smoothly.
Test for the app’s performance, usability, device-compatibility, security, authentication mechanism (if any) and more. Ensure you consider even the trivial errors and pass on to the concerned team for rectification because you never know what can let down your efforts at the end of the day.
App submission
For submitting your app to the App Store, you need to carry out a series of tasks. The first and foremost includes the creation of App Identifier followed by the creation of iOS provisioning profile, App Store listing and release build. You are also required to configure the build settings in Xcode. Next, comes the filling of version information of the app. Hit submit button for Apple developers to review your app.
Once you are through submitting your app to the App Store, it enters the review phase where the team of Apple developers and quality analysts evaluate your app for bugs and performance flaws. It is the critical phase because it isn’t as easy as it is in the case of Google Play Store.
The process isn’t a cakewalk, rather it is lengthy, full of rules and regulations that you need to comply with. Therefore, it is advised to plan the route well in-advance so that you don’t encounter hassles along the way.
Manish Jain
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