How Long Does It Take to Make an App?

admin

2 years ago

Probably this is the most common question: how long does it take to create an app? Or it’s another variation – how many hours does it take to build an app?

But as much as this is a common question, so much it is difficult and complex. We often respond – what result do you expect? In mobile development (at least in our company), the result is considered not by the number of hours spent, but a ready and fully functional product.

It all depends on what you want – we can make a one-button app in a day or spend many months on the development of client-server banking application. As you know, time may vary.

Actually, consideration of the article topic could be finished. But, if you know us well, we must try to find the truth and explain everything in detail. So, fasten your seatbelts and get ready for a takeoff!

Read also: How much does it cost to develop a mobile app?

How long it takes to build an app

Although today almost all are faced with such a phenomenon as mobile applications while not everyone understands what’s inside the process of its development. That misunderstanding is bad for business as a whole – both the customer and the executor. Therefore, we undertook such an important mission – to try to explain simply about app development timeline, as well as the development as a whole.

The first problem is that sometimes the customer does not know the intricacies of the implementation of certain functions or applications. And he might do not have a dedicated home team of developers, so he decides upon outsourcing.

Read also: Why outsource mobile app development

And from bad to worse! Since not all versed in the intricacies of creating applications, it is sometimes hard to explain, that the deadline for delivery of a rich-functional application with a huge database, under any circumstances cannot be 2-3 days. Especially if you need anything multiplatform. And it is shocking – Android and iOS require a special approach to the development, unfortunately, you cannot just “move” the code.

Do not forget that the development of a mobile application is not just writing code, there are still a lot of different processes.

Main stages of the application development

Here in BD, we divide the application creation process into several, closely related stages. Each of the following points involve a lot of professionals who acquire substantial knowledge in particular field through a lot of practice. We believe that the development of the product is fully competitive in the following sequence:

1. Preliminary estimate;

2. Analysis;

3. Prototyping;

4. Design concept;

5. Design development;

6. Programming;

7. Testing, QA/QC;

8. Publishing/project transfer.

On the basis of these stages of development, it becomes evident that mobile application development business is not quite fast, and very costly in terms of time. In the case of multi-platform applications, you will have to repeat steps 4-8 for each of the selected platforms. Since each mobile platform has its own peculiarities and specifics of how to approach the design of the interface, and in direct coding.

Let’s look closer at some of the above-mentioned stages of development.

• Analysis

In fact, in our company, this step is considered to be one of the largest and most complex (after the development of course, but there our developers use special magic). We divide it into several additional sub-stages, allowing us to use the most accurate method to identify appropriate goals and requirements.

First of all, we listen to the idea that the customer wants to implement. Then we ask questions concerning the future plans. For example, how you plan to use the application, some questions about the target audience, whether and what method of monetization is required, etc.

If you want to hire a team to develop your own applications, you need to answer or just to think about such problems:

– What goals do you set for yourself? Entering the market in order to attract new customers to express yourself, or you want to promote your brand using new technologies?
– Will you sell something in your application, as well as whether it will be free? If not – whether customers are willing to pay for it; an important point to be thinking out – ways of monetization. – Who are your target audience and which are the ways to attract / upscale it?

– Think about the budget – how much you’re willing to spend on the development and further promotion of the product?

If some terms seem complicated, just email us and we will help you!

• Prototyping

Everything is very simple here. At this stage, we thought out the application logic and created preliminary screen sketches.

Specifically, the development starts now because here we determine the number of the screens, come up with the location of the navigation buttons, and status alerts, describing the behavior of objects and actions performed by the user.

Since the main application logic thought up until the moment of writing the code, now is the time to describe how an application will behave in different types of use.

• Coding

After successful completion of the previous stages, the project finally goes directly to developers, where they are, based on their experience and the selected programming languages and frameworks, making the basic magic of the project. Based on the approved terms of reference, of course.

We dare to say that this action is also quite interesting because developers are creating amazing things from scratch that can greatly simplify our lives, or get rid of the annoying routines, automating any daily tasks.

• Testing, QA / QC

One of the most required steps, without which it is impossible to produce a quality product. In our company, the product passes many stages of testing and quality control at various stages of development: from start to release and beyond.

Our quality assurance pros are looking for any kind of non-compliance and possible bugs meticulous, not giving developers a chance to make a mistake. At least within the next build. Just joking.

Testing and quality control are necessary to be sure that the application complies with technical design specification, it has the proper quality and interacts with the hardware platform and the user in the right way.

Read also: Mobile app testing

• Presentation and publication

The final stage of the development of the application (not counting the period of post-release application support) that runs the life of the project, because after the publication of the application in the stores it may be used by your clients and targeted audience.

It usually goes away after you have finished all the main stages of development and testing, when all functionality is written, all the errors are corrected, and the customer is satisfied and gives approval for the publication. This is the most touching moment for the team that developed the product – they release their offspring and always worry and care about its quality.

Read also: The ultimate app store optimization guide

By way of conclusion

By writing such grownup article we still do not say a word about the average time to build an app. We think that it is too personal and individual matter, which is fraught with immense many aspects affecting the progress and development time. But let’s try to calculate a tentative timeline.

The first item in the list lasts on the average up to 2 days, while a complete analysis can take up to one working week, i.e. 5 days. Paragraphs 3-5 last from 1 to several working weeks and programming and testing easily take months of work, depending on the complexity of the output of the project (for example, an application in a single screen and a single button we’ll build per day).

We guess now you have an idea of “how long does it take to make an app”.

Rate: