We liken App development to a Swan, all glamorous and serene, with a mass of effort going on below the surface. In other words, the sex and sizzle you see from the App on the surface is only a small part of what’s really happening and this unseen element is the part most people don’t fully appreciate.
This is typical for software development in general as the dream of an application delivering the next big leap in productivity or the best thing since facebook is brought down to earth by the chap calculating the time and cost to deliver, maintain and support the said grand scheme.
The idea, the User experience (UX), the User interface (UI), the branding, the Operating system (OS) are all hugely important but underneath all of this you have to consider Hosting, Backup, Web services, API’s, Deployment accounts & Maintenance/support. Apps cannot be left to fend for themselves and remain successful all at the same time, you have to maintain them and the services they may be connected too. There is also the added external pressures on the app owner to keep pace with the market, which is in a constant state of evolution and it is this evolution which requires you to maintain the standard or risk losing it all. With a desktop application you can pretty much dictate the pace of evolution. Apps on the other hand are influenced to a greater extent by a combination of external 3rd party agendas/factors (ie the app stores, devices, OS).
Paddling hard yet? These are the foundations delivering the sex and sizzle and therefore important in terms of quality and ability to support the next big leap or £1m idea. We love a good idea and we thrive on improving and delivering better process and workflows to business, whatever platform it is on. Part of what we offer to achieve this is the injection of ideas, the people expertise, the problem solving and the structure to support and deliver fully scoped ideas that can and do make a difference.