According to a recent Nielsen report, the majority of the 120 million smartphone owners in the U.S. use a shopping or retail app at least once a month.
Mobile apps have become a profitable way for the companies to generate high revenue. If you are associated with a company that does not have a mobile app yet, you’re probably missing an amazing opportunity to tap into new revenue streams.
Mobile apps are a necessity in today’s smartphone-first world to engage customers, sell the product, and grow your business.
According to Comscore, 1.8 billion people across the world have mobile phones, surpassing the number of desktop computers in 2014. Mobile is an opportunity that needs to be taken advantage of.
Whether you’re a corporate executive with a large budget, or an entrepreneur looking to launch your startup, there’s a lot of time, money, and pride at stake in developing a mobile app, so finding the right app developer is extremely important.
The business insider report shows the growing need for the apps as one can see that the users are preferring apps more than the mobile web for their day to day facilities.
Having a smartphone app is a great way today to promote and market product and services, and if you would like to develop app for Android or iOS that lets people buy your products or simply give access to users to review your products and coupons, so you must employ an experienced iPhone or Android application developer who will build a customized app according to your business needs.
So the point of concern is what questions to ask an iPhone app developer so that we end up having the proper set of skills and knowledge for developing an app that provides a valuable customer experience and drives our revenue.
Some of your concerns may include:
- How do you identify which developers are better than others?
- With what languages, technologies, and platforms should quality developers be proficient?
- How can you judge which developers will communicate well, and which will hardly interact with you during the app development process?
Here is a list of 15 questions which you must ask when hiring an iPhone app developer.
1. Where can I find examples of the iPhone app developed by you?
Qualified candidates should be eager to provide you with a list of apps they are personally responsible for creating or at least played a major role in developing complete with links to each in Apple’s iOS App Store, BlackBerry App World or Google Play, Google’s Android app store. The candidate should have hands-on experience in iPhone app development.
In their portfolio try to find the iPhone applications which are similar to the kind of applications you want. In case there is no similar app in a portfolio, you can ask them about the approach they’d take to create yours. This might not be a critical info to be known for regular apps but in case of the little or more complicated app, it certainly is.
2. May I have a list of your current and past clients?
Unlike reading movie credits, there’s typically no way to tell who actually developed an app. This is why speaking directly with candidates’ current and former clients can be essential to verifying that the developers actually created the apps they claim to have worked on.
You can have the client details like contact information or email from the candidates so that you can have a look at his/her work.
3. Can you offer me some of your references?
Asking the iPhone app developer about his references is the best way o know more about his/her work and also about the rating and review of the work. Sometimes iPhone application developers may offer only the references who have a favorable opinion of them. Hence it is suggested that the candidates LinkedIn profile to be checked to see if you have any professional colleagues or former co-workers in common.
If you do, contact your mutual connections and ask them about their impression of the candidate’s experience, capabilities and work ethic.
4. How can my iPhone app make money?
If the goal of your app is to make money and generate profit then the iPhone application developer must design the app and build in features of the app in such a way. He can opt for a pay-per-download revenue model, charging, say, between 99 cents and $4.99, depending on how many features your app offers.
If you opt for a free app, be sure the candidate is well versed in how to integrate mobile display ads, in-app purchases or paid subscription services.
5. hat special features can you create for my application?
You have to be sure about what features and functionality you need to have in your iPhone application and you need to make sure that your iPhone app developer should able to build them and will allow you to make money. You probably need ratings and reviews incorporated into your app.
If there isn’t any direct experience by the iPhone developers at an agency, don’t give up just yet and how they might go about implementing it.
Related Article: 10 Reasons Why Mobile Apps Are Better Than Mobile Websites
Apps rarely grab consumers’ attention without truly innovative and useful features. Figure out the bells and whistles you’d like and then assess your iPhone developer’s capabilities.
The iPhone app developer should mention being able to tell you how they would implement any proposed feature or and provide insight into other apps have similar functionality and mention any appropriate plugins or frameworks that would be helpful.
Features are certainly important but the design and the experience of how the user accesses these features are just as critical to the success of your app.
Differentiating your mobile app from the over 3 million apps available across all of the app stores is difficult, and design and user experience is becoming so important to stand out among the crowd.
6. What is The Link To Your GitHub Repository?
Developers use Github mainly for version control. However, most of the developers use Github to save up codes they want to share with their team or with clients.
Ask your iPhone developer to share a link to their Github repository. You should see several of the iPhone apps they’ve developed and the ones they’re working on. Having these details is very much necessary for the employer to get knowledge about the iPhone app development previous experience and work style.
7. Do you have any kind of documentation for the iPhone applications you developed?
Documentations are important. It gives us the basic flow of the application developed by the developer. So you need to ask the candidate about the documentation so as to get the clear picture of his work.
8. What was the iPhone App development process or methodology you followed?
The iPhone developer you are hiring must know and be well versed in the development methodology he is using. You should ask the iPhone developer about the challenges faced in the previous work experience and also how they were resolved.
Knowing these things empowers you to determine if you’re going to be working with a reliable iPhone app developer who knows how to respond on the fly to challenges and can, therefore, produce successful iPhone apps.
Realistically, try to have candidates who have worked on agile development. Agile app developers tend to get things done more efficiently and have a better approach to the minimum viable product (MVP).
9. Which iPhone application development tools, framework and third-party applications you use for the app development and design?
You must ask the iPhone app developer about the details of the tools and frameworks he/she has used in previous experience also the third party applications if used any? This helps you to test the hands-on experience the developer has on iPhone application development.
Also you will come across to know various new tools and technology which can actually help you to do cost saving for your application.
10. What is your approach towards designing the UI and UX for the iPhone application?
UI and UX are most critical aspects of design-led app development that needs to be followed. Different companies have the different approach towards designing UI and UX of the app, some consider design as the first thing to nail down while some prioritize the flow first.
Related Article: 12 Tips To Consider While Choosing The Android App Development Company For Your Project In 2018
So you need to know what approach the iPhone developer has followed and is he familiar with them also if there is some kind of new approach which he/she is aware of.
11. How will you ensure that the application is secure from the hackers?
The iPhone application developer should be very much aware of the security of the application. The best way to ensure this is to ask them the best mobile app security practices they have followed. Since for the iPhone application to be on apple store, it should meet security standards.
12. Do you have experience in testing of the iPhone application?
Often once the application is developed it needs to be tested on the platform it is built for. It is often preferable if the iPhone developer knows the beta testing of the application and knows to resolve bugs. Also, it is important how quickly the developer can fix the bug.
If your app is being developed for iOS, it’s pretty easy to test it on the last few versions of the iPhone like the 6S and 6S Plus, 6 and 6 Plus, SE, 5S, and 5.
In order to acquire new users and keep current users engaged, you’ll have to keep up with bug fixes (there will always be bugs), test on updated versions of the operating systems, and continuously improve the features and functionality of the app.
So you should ask your iPhone app developer how you can structure maintenance and support program to address the future changes to your mobile app that may be necessary.
13. What Do Your Fees And Payment Terms Look Like?
One needs to be sure about the fees and modes of payment of the iPhone developer so that you can have a clear and flexible budget. Ensure you set milestones and pay when each milestone has been completed. The best thing you can do to ensure you’re covered is to have a very well defined set of deliverables when you get to the payment stage.
14. Are you ready to sign an NDA and copyright agreement for us?
It is essential to protect the innovative ideas and the company’s information to the iPhone application developer needs to sign the non-disclosure and the copyright agreement.
Asking about it in advance is usually preferred so that your data and ideas are secure enough, as in today’s world of growing app technology it is very difficult to come up with new ideas every now and then so one cannot afford to lose them.
15. What Level of Involvement From Me Will You Need?
You must ask the iPhone developer what kind of involvement is needed because they won’t be able to develop the iPhone app without input from you since it’s your vision, after all. This means no wireframes, prototypes or finished app without your input.
You need to decide on and document what all the iPhone developer needs and should make him sign the agreement for not disclosing your inputs. There will be numerous iterations on the way to the finished product, so your involvement is a necessity during the project management.
Mobile apps are so important and can help you grow your existing business or launch a new one. Finding the right mobile app developer is crucial, but it’s not easy. Make sure you take the time to find the developer that has the experience and capabilities that fit with the app you need building, communicates well, and has the right legal and fee structure for you. And asking the right questions is an important part of this search process.
Finding the ideal iPhone app developer is crucial, but it’s not easy. Don’t be in a hurry to find the developer do proper market research before hiring an iPhone app developer that has the experience and capabilities to meet your business needs.
