Are you planning to develop an ios application in 2023? You really need to speed up considering the wide range of opportunities in the marketplace. But, while planning to develop an app you must carry out the whole development process properly so your app can position itself in the mind of consumers.
Apple being one of the top leading companies has followed a differentiation strategy and has beaten its competitors by gaining a huge part of its market share. According to Statista, the iPhone market share in the US market has increased from 29.5% in 2012 to 51.4% in 2022.
Therefore, in today’s market, it is very profitable to make an app for iPhone. But the question arises: How can we develop an application for iPhone? No worries, we have a complete guide covering this question.
The very first thing that you should know in order to thrive in the market is that you must follow a differentiation strategy and should bring innovative features to the current marketplace. Now let’s discuss the steps of how to develop iPhone apps.
Steps To Develop An iPhone App
We have described the whole development process in 11 steps. Each step holds equal importance and contributes to creating an ios application.
Create An iPhone App Plan:
There are numerous ideas on which you can develop an app. But, again choosing the right idea as per the consumer and market needs will be very effective in generating revenue. A new idea will create hype among the consumers and will keep them engaged with your app.
You can adhere to the steps below to create a plan:
- List the ideas you want to work on.
- Understand the demands of your target audience
- Select the features and functions you want to include.
- Select a preferred programming language
Carry Out Proper Market Research:
Market research is an important element to start any business. This is because:
- It helps to understand the market
- Identifies the needs of the target audience
- Highlights competitors’ insights
- Identifies the latest opportunities, trends, and challenges
- Delivers value to your target audience
It is important that the research is carried out in a proper way from the data collection method to the analysis. At any point, if the research loses its reliability, the strategies base on this research will not be effective.
Therefore, it is essential for you to conduct valid research that can help you to generate a high return on investment. For your ease, we have listed the steps for carrying out the research.
- Identify The Need:
In this step, you will look for opportunities that you can avail yourself of by developing applications for iPhone. You will understand the needs and demands of your target audience so you can find a way to serve your target market.
- Collect Data:
The next step is to collect consumer-related data from different social media platforms. You can also carry out an online survey so to have a better understanding of what your consumer expects and wants.
- Analyse Data:
The data collected by the survey must be properly analyzed with the help of an expert. This will give you a rough idea of how many consumers expect a new feature and will try it out.
- Evaluate Alternatives:
Now that you have the relevant data, you can evaluate your alternatives. You can look at the consumer’s expectations and your budget for developing an app.
As you have completed your market research and have taken consumer feedback from social listening. You can proceed to the next step.
Select Features For Your App
By doing market research, you already have developed a rough draft of features that you want to have in your app. For a better understanding, you can refer to the example below.
Let’s assume that you want to develop a healthcare app because of an increase in awareness about fitness and diet plans. Then looking at the stats for the past years, you have identified that healthcare apps are on the top trend. Let’s take a look at some of the trendy features that you can include in your mobile application:
- One-step login and mobile-friendly application
- Offline content
- Multi-language support
- Multi-payments options
- Interactive and high-value content
- Personalized experience
- Gamification and 3D lectures
- Video tutorials
- Discussions forums
- Progress and attendance tracker
- Performance graphs
- Push notifications
- Live classes from the instructor
- Screen sharing
- Polls
- Performance tracker
- App ratings and feedback
To use such mobile applications, users need to make a profile on the app. They also need to add their health details like if they have any allergies or are going through any disease. In order to make the best use of the app, they should also add their right age, weight, and height on the app.
Mostly, health apps also ask for the amount of water intake per day and the calories consume within a day. The user needs to provide the details asked, so the app best serves its purpose.
Making A Design For Your App
App design is an important part of app development. This is because how your app looks, has a significant impact on user experience. If your app has an interesting layout it will automatically contribute towards a positive user experience.
When a user enjoys interacting with your app that means you have done an incredible job with the design development. Design development mainly includes:
- Make intuitive navigation
- Usability
- Text content
- Design tools
- User control
- Text legibility
- Spacing & Layouts
- Hands position control
- Touchscreen target size
- Include high-quality images
For your convenience, we have listed some of the design tools that can help in making a beautiful layout to attract your target audience.
Develop The App’s Graphic Design
Graphics is one of the most useful elements that are not only interesting to work on. But it contributes the most to creating an amazing user experience. Graphics can help your brand in several ways:
- Positioning your brand in the customer’s mind
- Increase customers engagement
- High visuals give a deep understanding of the product or service
- Helps to keep up with the market trends
There are various tools that can help in creating an app with high-quality graphics. These visuals and graphics affect user experience (UX) and user interface (UI).
Some top tools for IOS graphic design:
- Canva
- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe Creative Cloud
- Adobe Photoshop
- Adobe Creative Cloud Express
- Figma
- HoneyBook
- Affinity Designer
- VistaCreate
- Issuu
You can use these tools to design your app. These tools will also help you learn the whole process of designing an app. Although, with the help of such tools it seems like an easy job. but, if you still need assistance you can follow video tutorials for graphics designing.
Still even, if you are not sure about how to design graphics so you can take professional help and can get this job done. You can look for a graphic app designer on different freelancing websites like Upwork or Fiverr or you can hire a developer that you think is suitable for the job.
Related: What Are The 3 Types Of Mobile Applications?
Test Your iOS App
After completing the development process, you need to test your app on an iPhone device. You can test your app on the following elements:
- Speed
- Overall performance
- Efficiency
- Intuitive navigation
- Check whether your app name matches its description
- Test your functions and features
You can use the following tools to test your app:
Create An App Marketing Plan
Your app is completely developed and is ready to be used by consumers. But, before you proceed with launching your app you need to understand the importance of marketing. Marketing helps in creating a sustainable competitive advantage (SCA), which mainly refers to the uniqueness of your business model.
In simple words, this means the technology you are selling must be unique and should add value to the customer. You must also ensure that your app is not copied in the short run. This is very essential for new inventions that are very useful for modern technology. Lastly, you need to make sure that your app is affordable for the users if you are having subscription plan for your users.
Revenue Generation
Thus, marketing plays a major role in generating revenue for a business. Without marketing your app, consumers would not know about your app. You need to ensure that your marketing strategy and tactics reach your target audience. This would automatically enhance your sales and profits.
In addition to an increase in business opportunities, there are many products and services in the market. This directly gives consumers a wide range of options to choose from. This means you need to be 100% prepared while launching your product. If you leave any gaps so your competitors will seize them and turn them into an opportunity to convert consumers into their customers.
For example, if you are launching an app that will help to make resumes for employees. You need to make sure that you are promoting your app on the right platform. In this case, LinkedIn can be an effective platform for grabbing attention from your target audience. As it is mostly used by employers and people who are searching for jobs.
You can also use display ads to market your app on different websites that will maximize your market reach. There are many types of display ads, you can use any of them. You need to keep one thing in your mind, be careful when you are selecting a website or app for display ads. This means you need to choose a website that has a similar target audience as your app.
If you advertise your app on a website with a completely different niche and target audience. Then your advertisement is of no use, as it will not engage and interact with your target consumers.
Let’s say you are starting a marketing campaign before your app is launched. Here are some marketing strategies that you can use:
Make A Landing Page For Your Application
This will help users to directly land on your app when they interact with your advertisement. Your landing page must have a call to action plan that will help you to connect with consumers. Your value proposition and positioning also depend on your CTA plan.
Build An Email List For Your Target Audience
You must have noticed when you open a website, you are asked to subscribe immediately. Even most websites asked for an email address or ask for your phone number so they could send you updates regarding the app and its offerings.
Therefore, you must have an email list so you can announce your app. By having the email addresses of your target audience, you can also update them with the deals and discounts that your app will offer.
Build A Social Media Kit
The social media kit contains all information related to your app. This helps users, content creators, and journalists to know about your app. It will also attract potential clients and will convert them into customers.
A social media kit can help you to establish relationships with customers by sharing reliable data. Social media kits basically act as the brand’s face as they hold factual information that increases customer engagement and visibility.
You can also put a summary of the service and expertise that your app will help with. By doing so, you are educating customers about your app. Furthermore, the social media kit will increase brand awareness and will help to connect with customers anytime.
Use App Store Optimization Tools
Optimization tools are very helpful to rank your app among the top apps. With the use of keywords, you can achieve this goal. You need to make a list of the most trending keywords that you can find by searching in the app store.
Optimization tools are very productive when we talk about increasing visibility and engagement. These tools make the app more appealing to users which ultimately leads to an increase in conversion rates.
Below is a list of app optimization tools:
In case, if you are not aware of the app optimization tools and features. That includes keywords, meta titles, and descriptions so you can take help from any educational blogs or video tutorials.
Share Your Journey
In our modern world, storytelling is the greatest weapon to promote your app. You must take this as an opportunity to gain attention and engagement from potential customers. You can share your journey in the following elements:
How did you come up with the idea of developing an app?
How did you develop an iPhone app?
Was the process interesting?
Is it worth it to put your time and money into creating an app?
Do you enjoy being an app developer?
You can also share the tools and resources you use while developing your app. By using this tactic, you can communicate with your audience. This will also motivate them to try out your app. This means before your app is launched. You are already successful in creating a customer-fan base.
Now let’s take a look at strategies that you can consider using after your app is launched.
- You may carry out a press release or social media posts
- You may do paid marketing that will cover digital marketing channels
- You can email your subscribers to let them know that your app is ready to use
- Find relevant groups and forums to mention your app, this will increase your app’s awareness among potential customers.
Approval Of Your Application From The App Store
Does that mean your app is actually available at the apple app store?
Yes, once you submit your app to the app store certification team and it gets approved. So, that means your app is available in the app store for real. Millions of users can download your app and can use it.
To make this process more smooth and more efficient, you need to see that your app complies with the following checkpoints:
- Your app must be up to the Apple app store guidelines
- Use app store connect to find keywords and to fill in your meta titles and descriptions.
- Use Xcode to upload your app
- Submit your app to review to the app store connect
- Your app will get reviewed to see if it fulfills apple app store guidelines and provides a positive user experience
- In two-three days, you will know if your app is approved or rejected
Expanding Your Market Reach And Visibility
This is the time to use marketing strategies that will give a long-term benefit to your app. To achieve this goal, you must use strategies that will cause a dramatic increase in your app engagement and interaction. Consequently, you can earn customer attention and loyalty.
For your ease, we have listed down some ways to market your app for maximum reach:
- Make sure your app is in the spotlight in the Apple app store
- You can run a paid marketing campaign
- Enhance your app store optimization
- You can use influencer marketing to promote your app among users
User’s Feedback
Mostly every app asks you to rate your experience. It is due to a very important reason which is when customers rate their experience. It helps you to identify where you stand in the customer’s eye.
By taking customers’ feedback, you can improve your app features and services. It will help you to work on your weak points so you can stand and sustain yourself in the marketplace.
Keep Updating Your App
To stay ahead of the competition, you need to keep updating your app. You should keep a track of the latest feature that is available in the market. This would give you an idea about features that are in demand.
Challenges In Developing iPhone Apps
There are several challenges that developers face while creating iPhone apps. Some of the most common are:
Battery Consumption
You need to keep in mind that users do not favor apps that consume a lot of battery. Therefore, app developers should come up with a battery-friendly app.
Storage & Memory
You should also ensure that your app does not take up a lot of space if you need to maximize your audience reach. This is because most people uninstall the application if it takes up huge storage space.
Device Adaptability
Whenever Apple releases a new iPhone, it has a new hardware and software version. Therefore, you need to make sure that you keep your application updated with every new version so your app remains compatible with apple devices.
User interface
Since Apple itself never compromise on its quality. Therefore its customers have high expectations with ios apps. While developing an ios app, you should make sure that your app design is of superior quality that gives the user an outstanding experience.
App Store Approval
As already discussed, the apple app store has specific guidelines that make an app eligible for users. If you want your app to be in the app store, you must meet all the requirements given by the Apple app store.
Conclusion
The following blog explains the steps for developing applications for iPhone. As with today’s fast-growing technology, app development is a great way to generate money. It is one of the best possible ways to add value to customers. By creating an ios development service, you can communicate and deliver value to customers on a large and extended scale.
FAQs
How Hard Is It To Make Apps For iPhones?
With recent technology, it is now very easy to develop an iPhone app. It might be a long process but if you plan and execute it in the right manner, your app will be successful.
What Is The Best Tool To Create An iPhone App?
Xcode is the best too as it allows you to make apps for iPhone. You can download it for free from the Apple store and can use it for building an interface with an interesting design. After developing the app, you can also submit your app to the app store.
What Is The Cost To Develop Applications For iPhone?
To develop an application for iPhone, it takes an estimated $ 16,000- $450,000. This is when you hire a mobile app development company in the US. Whereas, if you outsource your mobile app development company from India or Pakistan so it will cost you a lot lower than the actual.
How To Develop An Apple Watch App?
- Use Xcode
- Create a new project
- Select the template, lifecycle, and programming language for your watch app
- Test your app
How To Develop iOS Apps On Windows?
- Install macOS on your Windows PC
- Use a cloud-based mac
- Use another app in place of Xcode
What Is The Best Software For Coding iPhone Apps?
There are many coding apps for iPhones such as:
- Swift Playground
- Sololearn
- Koder
- Grasshopper
- Textastic
- Mimo
- Programming Hub
- Pythonista 3
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