Ever wondered about the real hurdles in mobile app development? Insights from a Development Expert and a CEO reveal the intricate challenges faced in this domain. From building the first working prototype to integrating advanced third-party services, this article uncovers six unique perspectives. Discover the journey from inception to execution and find out what experts have to say.
- Building the First Working Prototype
- Balancing Simplicity and Functionality
- Optimising Game Engine for Mobile Devices
- Supporting Various Devices and Screen Sizes
- Revamping Authentication System
- Integrating Advanced Third-Party Services
Building the First Working Prototype
As the CTO and architect during the development of PokerSquare, a multiplayer online gaming app, I faced many challenges. From a leadership and architectural perspective, here are my thoughts:
- Working Prototype: Building the first working prototype was the most challenging and rewarding task for us. To achieve this, we went through many iterations of product design and architectural changes.
- Cross-Platform Development: This challenge had two parts. First, deciding whether to go with native or hybrid development. Then, choosing which platform to target first. Ultimately, we used Unity as a development platform to build the app, which supported both iOS and Android.
- Scalability and Performance: One of the primary concerns for any technology leader when building a mobile app is ensuring scalability and performance. This was a huge challenge for us initially, as we used Meteor.js as our back-end server framework for real-time messaging. However, it couldn’t scale well during our load testing. We had to pivot and switch to a completely different technology stack—Elixir (Erlang based) and Phoenix Framework, which worked much better for us.
- Motivation: Apart from technical challenges, keeping the team motivated toward a single goal was crucial. This was a challenge in itself, but it was essential for the app’s success. Another hurdle was ensuring the team stayed aligned with the same vision.
- Frequent Pivoting: In the early phases of app development, we often found ourselves pivoting in different directions, which was both challenging and necessary to refine the product.
Overall, the development of a mobile app was a challenging but rewarding experience.
Ravi Laudya, Development Expert, SAP Concur
Balancing Simplicity and Functionality
Mobile app development is rewarding, but it’s definitely no walk in the park. It’s not just about coding but about delivering an experience that works seamlessly, is intuitive for users, and aligns with your goals.
For us at Carepatron, one of the most challenging aspects of mobile app development was finding the balance between simplicity and functionality. As a healthcare practice management platform, Carepatron caters to healthcare professionals and their tools must be intuitive and efficient. At the same time, the app also has to be robust enough to handle complex workflows like patient notes, billing, scheduling, and compliance with privacy regulations like HIPAA. Balancing those has always been our priority.
Another major challenge was ensuring seamless cross-platform compatibility. You want your app to work just as well on an iPhone as it does on an Android device. However, dealing with different operating systems, screen sizes, and performance specs is not always straightforward. Add in the fact that the healthcare industry often involves older devices and slower internet connections, and suddenly, you’re not just optimising for the latest tech—you’re making sure it’s accessible to everyone.
Lastly, user trust was one of the trickiest aspects to navigate. In healthcare, you’re dealing with sensitive data and workflows that impact real lives, so there’s no margin for error. Security, compliance, and reliability aren’t just features, they’re non-negotiables. It meant spending a lot of time double-checking that we met privacy standards, running exhaustive testing, and creating transparent communication around how data was handled.
Jamie Frew, CEO, Carepatron
Optimising Game Engine for Mobile Devices
Mobile app development has been quite the roller coaster for us, especially when juggling complex features with user-friendly design. I recently struggled with optimising our game engine for different mobile devices, but found that breaking down the development into smaller sprints and testing frequently really helped us maintain quality while meeting deadlines.
Christian Marin, CEO, Freezenova
Supporting Various Devices and Screen Sizes
The difficulty of mobile app development is usually based on the range of devices you want to support. For starters, will you support iOS, Android, or both?
Once you’ve made that choice, you need to decide which form factors you will support. Apple used to be quite easy with just one or two screen sizes to develop for, but now there is a wide variety of screen sizes to optimise for.
Then you move on to Android where the sizes of screens are more or less unlimited.
Android has another issue in terms of development and that’s the fragmented nature of OS adoption. With Apple, most people are on either the latest iOS or the version before it. With Android the fragmentation of OS versions is huge, going from the latest version back five or six versions. With each version comes different APIs and performance requirements.
Then there’s tablets!
Ben Grimwade, Software Engineering Manager, Just Another Tech Lead
Revamping Authentication System
Mobile app development is like solving a puzzle where the pieces keep changing shape, especially when dealing with streaming and security features. Just last month, I had to completely revamp our authentication system because different Android versions handled biometric verification differently, causing major headaches for our users. I’ve learned that thorough testing across multiple devices and OS versions is absolutely crucial, even if it feels time-consuming.
Tyler Hall, Developer, TROYPOINT
Integrating Advanced Third-Party Services
App development for an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) is often simpler than it might seem, especially when focusing on core features to validate an idea. However, things get significantly more complex when integrating with advanced third-party services and APIs, beyond basic features like maps or payment gateways.
In domains like fintech and healthtech, the complexity skyrockets due to the critical emphasis on data security, compliance, and privacy. These apps often demand expertise not just in app development but also in server-side architecture, encryption protocols, and sometimes blockchain solutions, depending on the use case. In these cases, the technical challenges shift from just building a functional app to ensuring it is robust, scalable, and secure enough to handle sensitive user data.
Similarly, with a lot of IoT aspect with the Apps (Apps connected to devices), the safety, security of user data and transactions is of paramount importance.
So to make this process easy, one should go with a team that not only has intelligent front-end app developers but also have architects, DevOps, and backend developers who have similar experience in the past.
Sudeep Bhatnagar, CEO, Agicent Technologies
