Expanding Your Business With an iOS App

Smartphones have become one of the best ways for brands to engage with a target audience. Building a companion iOS app for your business, or structuring an entire business around creating apps for Apple’s marketplace, can be a powerful way to connect with clients and customers globally.

Whether you aim to create a killer app for your company or start a new app-driven enterprise, these articles from the Hiring Headquarters—Upwork’s resource for businesses, freelancers, and entrepreneurs—will help you get started.

Hiring iOS developers

Coming up with ideas for an iOS app that can enhance your business and reach your market can be easy—at least for some people—but turning those ideas into fully functioning and well-designed apps takes expertise. If you’re not code savvy, or lack the spare time to dig into the development yourself, engaging an app developer with the right skills to help bring your project to fruition is worth the expense.

“How Much Does It Cost to Hire an iOS Developer?” breaks down the typical rates charged by highly rated iOS developers on Upwork, from basic “get the job done well” skills to advanced experts who can offer additional perks for a more premium price. It’s an excellent reference to help you ballpark your budget, and includes additional insights to help you get the most for your money.

Beyond the financial cost of engaging a developer, the article also explores tips to help you define the boundaries and needs of your project and breaks down the elements that iOS app development most commonly entails.

Go native or cross-platform?

There can be perks to creating a native iOS app—an app designed and coded specifically to run on Apple phones and tablets. But the benefits of exclusivity can sometimes be outweighed by the need for enhanced connectivity and reaching a broader mobile market outside of typical Apple device users.

Deciding between going native or using cross-platform software to create your iOS app can be a significant factor to mull over as you begin planning out the development cycle.

“Native vs. Xamarin: Which Type of Mobile App Should You Develop?” explores reasons why you might develop a native app as well as common challenges that can come from taking a cross-platform approach. It then takes a closer look at Xamarin, cross-platform software that lets you create native apps for different devices and storefronts while offering platform-specific user interfaces.

Here are three of the perks of using Xamarin highlighted in the article:

• A shared code base simplifies development. Using one C# codebase for multiple platforms cuts down on the time and expense you could spend developing multiple versions of your app for each platform natively.
• Apps update easily. Updating your app across multiple storefronts can be much faster when you have everything in one place.
• Native performance. With access to device application programming interfaces (APIs), Xamarin enables you to build an app that connects directly to native functionality.

Tapping into the power of analytics

For any mobile developer, getting real-world feedback and data from app users is crucial when it comes to fine-tuning and improving the experience.

App owners can put analytics to work in exciting ways, too, by integrating them right into their apps. The information and insights you gather can be invaluable for making business decisions and plans.

“An Intro to Mobile App Analytics” demystifies what analytics is and what it can do for your business, from enhancing your marketing efforts to helping you improve the efficiency of your operations.

In addition to exploring how to structure questions to get the right info from users, the article looks at ways collect and organize analytics data from your apps. It also provides a comparison of common analytics tools and services so that you can familiarize yourself with different resources available.

Learn more about mobile app development on the Hiring Headquarters >>

The post Expanding Your Business With an iOS App appeared first on Upwork Blog.

from Upwork Blog http://ift.tt/2jHRZSw