How to Find the Best Mobile App Developer

How hard can it be to build a mobile app?

There are plenty of tools out there. The bottom line message: I can make an app. You can make an app. It might not do much, and it might not look good. But yes, anyone can make an app, it's easy. Apple and Android have all made app creation easy. Golden Gekko created Tino Mobile App Studio, a tool that lets everyone create a cross platform app without writing a single line of code.
But as they say: Anyone can be a painter, not everyone can be Picasso.
When you're looking for a mobile app partner, here are some things to keep in mind:

User interface design:


With mobile, less can be so much more, and figuring out the best bits you need, and more importantly the best bits you don't need is not easy.
A smaller screen makes it tricky to design the right user experience for an app. At some point you may think you have the best design. It will look good, and then you will see the right design...
At Golden Gekko, we design the best user interface we can, but the real work starts when the app is first seen by a user. Listening to the feedback of users makes sure we keep improving in the direction your users want us to improve. If anyone says they have the answer right off the bat, we offer a guarantee: they don't even know the question.

Cross platform support:


The above may sound hard. It is. Don't underestimate how hard it is to get a good first interface design. But it gets even harder. People assume you only have to do it once! But there are all sorts of platforms out there. You need to design the app to get the best out of every platform. Users expect their iPhone apps to fit in with the iPhone way, and their Android apps to fit in with their Android apps. Disappointed users quickly start to bring down ratings, and ratings drive downloads.

Orientation:


It's difficult to foresee every possible way a user may want to use your app. Many developers forget and upset users. When a user rotates the screen, the content needs to update in a way that maximises the new space. If your app looks the same but wider, you forgot. Spend the time, make it work and the users will thank you.

Reliability: 


The most common negative feedback on the appstores is that the app crashes. The majority of apps are actually so poorly developed that they crash after a few minutes use. Motorola’s CEO claimed that many device returns were due to app crashes. There is absolutely no excuse for this. Users expect apps to be reliable, good quality code and testing procedures help ensure this.

Phone to tablet:

Just the same, but bigger? No. Please, go pick up a tablet. It's not a phone. Nobody should treat it as a phone. Early adopters of tablets are already getting frustrated with app developers not respecting the changing demands of the tablet world.
These are just a few of the high level things that we consider important for our clients to achieve the full potential of apps. There are many device and platform specific considerations, settings and bugs to consider. It's a topic that could fill a book.

So, what do we look for in a good mobile app developer?
The same things you need from any developer. Great problem solving ability, an awareness of user needs, knowledge of sound design patterns and awareness of sound coding architecture and practices. Quality code design never gets old.

At Golden Gekko, we focus on employing the best programmers we can find, whatever their specific background may be. The best programmers understand how to produce robust, extendable and re-usable code. If they have that, we can show them, through our user interface design team, exactly what we need to build.

Great developers are always a good investment. Cheap developers offer short term solutions,  but the long term costs are significant. If you want to pay for the same job, over, and over again, then by all means go cheap. If you're looking to form a partnership, producing quality, market leading apps, that can take your customer loyalty to a new level, come see us...

And if you're a developer, and you know you're good, we'd like to hear from you...