Based on the complexity, iPhone applications (all mobile applications) can be categorized into three groups.
- Informative app with no updates, which provides information about an event or a business.
- Informative app with updates from server, which reads data from the server and presents in the iPhone.
- Interactive app, which reads data from server as well as updates the data into the server.
Cost for developing each category of app goes high when moving from category 1 to 3. Informative app with no updates is a good start for any business to make their presence in the mobile applications. This is a stand alone application with no interaction to any server. The information put in the application will be available to the end users as it is (no updates). However, the chance that the information gets outdated is high as time passes. Upgrade the app to a higher category such as informative with updates or Interactive, is the next step. Both requires the iPhone app to be integrated to your web server and hence the development cost will be higher than the one with no updates.
Zoiliotech have expertise in developing apps in all three catagories. In the case of an interactive application where iPhone application is going to write into your database, experience and expertise in designing the app really matters. One key difference between mobile application and the web application is that, corrections in the web application is reflected to the users next time they access it, whereas for mobile application (iPhone/Android/Blackberry) the correction has to come through new version of the app. And there is no guarantee that all users will upgrade to the latest version. This poses a long term threat for the interactive applications. A user who has downloaded a very old version of the app (and never upgraded) will approach your server with an old version of the application and your design should be able to handle transactions from all previous versions of the released applicaton. This is a long term impact of the design, and businesses should engage qualified and experienced companies for designing their interactive mobile app. Designers shoud be able to foresee and manage the "evolution" of the app version after version.
For any clarification on mobile/iPhone application design, please feel free to contact us to talk to one of our experienced consultants.