Mobile phones earlier had a restricted use in terms of making calls, sending messages and to play some very simple archaic games. Internet was basically accessed on desktops. Now all that has changed. The world has converged literally on the hand held devices. In fact mobile phones have pervaded our lives like never before.
Smartphones are practically catering to every purpose from the basic call making and messaging roles to providing enterprise solutions. They are your fitness gadgets, map locators, doctor finders, appointment generators, gaming devices and what not. All these functions are possible through mobile applications or apps as they are commonly known. The touch screen, high-speed internet, social-media engagement all these have speeded up the process of increased mobile adoption in the present times.
Understandably, there is a huge demand for mobile app development globally, especially for the Android platform. Android has captured almost 83% of mobile app market. Android being the most popular OS for smartphones globally provides the app owner access to an enormous user base. No wonder mobile app development companies are receiving greater than before demand for Android app development.
Accomplishing a big success in the competitive app market is a difficult feat to achieve. Therefore, the android development company and the android developers should primarily focus on improving their app development skills. Certainly, Android operating system gives a lot of freedom to developers to build their mobile apps and access to an ever-growing user base to the app owner as pointed out earlier. However, Android Development Company face many challenges in the process to deliver that killer app.
Let us take you through some of the key challenges being faced by an Android Development Company while delivering an innovative app. This is an exhaustive list but more or less captures the scene clearly.
Incompatibility due to UI Problem
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Incompatibility with different UI is probably one of the most confounding challenge for any Android Development Company. Android developers while developing an app have to make sure it works perfectly on different Android devices. There are as many features to an android device as many different makes are present in the market. In fact, each Android device has its own features in terms of display size and screen resolutions. It is a difficult and almost mind numbing process to build an app according to the different set of resolution. Android developers follow the rules that are introduced by Google for a common interface. This, however, leads to create different interface which is very different from the interface for the device created by the original equipment manufacturer. The android development company can resolve this by building an application with responsive layout. The flip side to it is it gets heavy on pocket for the android development company to develop an app which works fine on all the available android devices.
Fragmentation
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Software and hardware fragmentation is a common challenge faced by all app developers on all the platforms. However, it is a bigger challenge on Android platform comparatively. An Android Development Company has to consider a lot of devices while developing the app. This challenge is compounded by the fact that these devices are running on different android OS versions.
According to a survey near about 1.2 percent of the devices are running on the latest Android Marshmallow while 35% are on Lollipop and another 36% devices run KitKat. The remaining others are running on primitive versions and eons away from the latest android upgrades. Also, there are nearly 170 plus devices running the Android OS. Each device has different features with respect to keyboard forms, screen size, camera buttons, et al making it a development nightmare.
Understandably, developing an app which works on all the versions and devices is hard for the android developers. This means that developers can’t focus on the latest version of the Android OS as all devices are not upgraded. Onus for device configuration lies with the manufacturer. It is quite difficult for the Android app developer to take steps in solving software upgradation issue.
As a thumb rule, the android development company try to focus on the latest versions only while building the app. However, this may result in clients losing their prospective customers who are using the older versions.
Android Development Company should be aware of the fact that there are many carriers available for the Android OS. Each carrier in turn has the freedom to modify the OS for their purposes. This only bourgeons the fragmentation problems for developers.
Security
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Android is very flexible in its rules for developing an app on its platform unlike Apple iOS which follows strict guidelines for app development. Consequently, many malware issues arise and software/hardware fragmentation only compounds this and make it more difficult to fix the problems.
In Android, security is a major concern. Building an Android app extremely secure is a bummer owing to non-standardized hardware and software components in android devices available in the market. There are plenty of Android devices in the market running on different OS versions. The hardware and software in Android is not standardized for these devices. It is very difficult to deal with a humongous number of security features for the developers. As a result, many of the Android apps face security issues. Android security flaws seep in due to fragmentation as well as loose guidelines followed while building the app. One might encounter security threats such as QuadRooter Vulnerabilities, “Stagefright” MMS flaw, Android FakeID flaw and Android Installer hijacking and sundry others due to these issues.
Patent Issues
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Recently Android software developers and hardware manufacturers have faced lawsuits for violation of patent issues. The developers incorporate some innovative features in the app while building it only to forget that it has been used in some other apps already. This duplicity invokes patent and copyright issues and legal battles may ensue. There is no mechanism in Android platform to keep a check on these duplication and ensure no infringement intellectual property unlike Apple’s strict governance policies. There is a lack of quality checks at the time of uploading apps in Google Play Store. These legal issues can become a big challenge for Android Development Company and may result in heavy costs if things go wrong and turn unfavourable in courtrooms.
Weak Android search Engine
Android Development Company with a killer app developed for its client faces a major challenge in the Android marketplace. There are more than 8 million apps in Google Play Store. Your app after uploading it on the app store will be lost like a needle in the haystack. Android Market Search Engine is a pretty huge universe. It is a big challenge for app developers to get visibility in the android marketplace. If you don’t pay attention to promotions of your innovative app you may lose out on gaining any traction.
Market Research
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An app development project is successful only if it is built with end user in focus while developing it. Notably, understanding the end user is key to Android app development and its success. This will expectedly require a lot of research and can add cost to the android development company. It will be challenging for any android development company to optimize its market research efforts and keep the costs in budgeted margins.
