Mobile Application Development
Mobile Application Development is the process of building and developing software and application programs for mobile phones and smart gadgets. These application and software programs are either installed already during the mobile device’s manufacturing or bought from software providers for mobile phones and then installed in the phone, or downloaded directly to the mobile phone through its web browser (via its HTTP functionality that uses client- and server-side processing). But since this is a very broad topic, this article will help you familiarize yourself with what mobile application development is all about.
Software and application programs for mobile phones are being designed, built and developed to run on the most well-known mobile device platforms and environments today. These are the Android OS, the Blackberry OS, the HP webOS, Windows Mobile, the Symbian OS and the Apple iOS. These execution environments only support the codes and binaries that correspond to its operating system. But what is common among most mobile phones is that they use ARM processors. Through the commonly used ARM Architecture, the codes and binaries of the mobile app are executed in machine format for reading by the device’s processor. Development of mobile apps though, still have to be done using tools for specific mobile operating systems.
As a developer, it is always a must to determine and do an analysis of what platforms or environments to use for the development of mobile phone applications and programs. Doing mobile software development gives the programmer exposure to the tools of the trade, enabling him to write the code faster, test it, and later on deploy the mobile app for certain mobile phones and their operating systems. Some of the known development environments for mobile application development include the following: Adobe AIR, Android, Application Craft, Aqua, Battery Tech, Blackberry, Canappi, CloudPact, Corona SDK, iOS SDK, Java ME, Macromedia Flash Lite, Meme IDE,.NET Framework, Symbian, Windows Mobile, and the webOS.
After every development phase, the built and developed modules of the mobile application must undergo a series of tests to determine whether it functions according to the requirements set to it or not. The project team must assign one of its members to perform the testing and functionality checks. For mobile application development, here are the mobile application test environments that can be used for the Android, iPhone and Blackberry operating systems:
- Google Android Emulator
- Official Android SDK Emulator
- MobiOne
- iPhoney; and
- Blackberry Stimulator.
Other tools include FoneMonkey, Robotium, Sikuli and MITE.
These are the things to keep in mind when setting out to develop software applications and programs for mobile phones and smart gadgets. It is quite difficult and time-consuming to undertake a project of developing mobile applications since there are a lot of requirements to consider and a lot of time is needed for analyses, the concurrent development of different modules, and its integration into one fully-functioning application, and the testing phase that should be carried out meticulously. Mobile application software development is similar to system software development for computers, and web applications, and web site development – the product of the project undergoes the phases of the system development life cycle (SDLC). Therefore, the only difference is the development environments and the operating systems where the mobile applications are going to be deployed.
