Mobile apps have revolutionized the modern tech world. It has become one of the best marketing tools for developing businesses as it allows users to have the complete information at their fingertips.
However, creating an application is a costly and intensive process, both in terms of time and financial resources. Sometimes you simply do not have the budget to build an expensive application, or you need to get to the market quickly to take advantage of an opportunity.
In this blog, we will see 5 different tools/ways that you can use to accelerate your application development process. And that has a double effect, how? As it can reduce the cost of creating an application and, at the same time, launch the application faster.
Price: Free trial, $99/year for 1–3 person team
Platforms: Android, iOS, Web
This tool helps in generating code for visually designed UI components using Objective-C, Swift, JavaScript, C#, SVG code and Java. After this, you can use this code in your mobile application and the UI component will appear on the screen.
With PaintCode, a designer can create superb looking UI components and see how those designs come to life in the application (Pixel-perfect, with zero roundtrips). PaintCode exports your drawings to a single file, so you can simply re-import that file each time the user interface components are updated.
Moreover, it has a compliment for Sketch, a popular graphic design tool. With the add-in, you can export sketch drawings directly to Swift or Objective-C. Therefore, you do not have to recreate drawings in PaintCode but export them directly from Sketch.
Top Features:
- It is customizable and flexible.- It saves your time and goes back-and-forth.- It also supports 4 major app platforms.- It has a responsive support and well-written documentation.
Related Blog: How Artificial Intelligence (AI) is Transforming Mobile Technology?
2) Fastlane
Price: Free & open-source
Platforms: Android and iOS
This tool supports your app workflow with automated tools & processes. This mainly focusses on continuous deployment and continuous integration. The tool got so much importance as there were issues between QA and the lead mobile developer which now can speed up with this tool.
This tool automates the creation of the application screenshots for various devices and also automate distributing app beta builds viz. managing code signing, logging app changes, setting the build version and uploading the app.
In addition to this, Fastlane consists of a set of actions, such as uploading the compilation of your application and workflows that connect various actions. Each of these actions is scripted, which means you can customize them as you see fit. And Fastlane integrates with the most popular CI / CD tools, such as CircleCI, Jenkins and Travis CI.
The best thing about this tool is that it is open source. That means that mobile app developers can contribute to the tool and create their own actions and add-ons. Each Fastlane tool is widely documented, including examples and best practices, which makes it an essential tool in the toolbox of all application developers.
Top Features:
- It automates the complex tasks.- It saves a lot of time.- It makes fewer mistakes by avoiding manual work.
3) Design Templates
Price: Free/Paid
Platforms: Any
When it comes to mobile app development, it is the design of the app what matters. A well-designed app ranks better within the app store as compared to other apps or poorly designed apps. A design template is nothing more than predesigned graphics ready for your application. You can adopt the components and styles you want, or simply copy and paste the entire graphic design.
The users of your application care about a good user experience, more than ever. We install fewer applications and spend more time in the applications with which we are familiar. On the one hand, users are less willing to take risks with an application they do not know. On the other hand, application developers have the opportunity to stand out with an impeccable design, UI / UX and brand.
Designing a mobile application from scratch takes a lot of time, huge money and many resources. Perhaps the in-house designer does not have much experience in the design of mobile applications, or the budget for his prototype thin and medium application only represented a modest graphic design. Here, a design template comes in.
An application design template may be freely available, but that does not automatically mean that you can use, change or charge for it. The original work is always copyrighted by its creator, therefore, when in doubt, do not use it or ask for explicit permission. In fact, many design templates are made of multiple types of apps like productivity, e-commerce of social apps. However, you can use these templates for creating mockups of your application.
Top Features:
- It is affordable and of high quality.- It saves both times as well as money.- Most of the templates are customizable.
4) Parse Server
Price: Free (Need infrastructure like Heroku for running it)
Platforms: Android, iOS, JavaScript, React, PHP, Arduino, .NET, Unity
Parser server is a cloud back-end(open source) consisting of various additional services like push notifications, databases, user management, and file storage. This is affordable, scalable, customizable, comes with useful built-in tools and easy to maintain.
It first creates an instance of the Parser server on PaaS(Platform-as-a-Service) and then connects the Parse Server instance to DaaS(Database-as-a-Service). Now, it integrates your mobile app with the new instance and you can start using the new tools.
Moreover, it is the reincarnation of Parse.com’s latest service, which was closed in early 2017. Instead of providing a service made by you such as Parse.com, Parse Server allows you to implement your own custom cloud-based backend. It easily connects with back-end tools to help mobile app developers.
Cloud Functions is one of the best features of this tool. By using the JavaScript, you can easily code simple tasks which get executed whenever an event in Parse Server gets triggered. By using this tool, mobile app developers need to spend less time on maintaining web servers and creating back-end services.
Top Features:`
- It has an active open source community.- It supports a number of platforms including IOT.- It consists of an excellent documentation and code.
Read Also: Some Key Benefits Of Using Mobile App Deep Links vs. Traditional Links
5) Awesome iOS and Awesome Android tools
Price: NA
Platforms: Android, iOS
It is actually a resource, not a tool which is worth sharing too. Awesome consists of a list of frameworks, libraries, resources, blogs, podcasts, courses, tools, books, and various amazing templates for mobile app development. While doing a simple search, it is found that GitHub shows there are amazing lists for almost anything, from iOS to Swift to Android to JavaScript.
Our most popular amazing lists are:
-List of awesome lists of Sindre Sorhus-Awesome iOS by Vinicius Souza-Awesome Android by Jürgen Stumpp
Top Features:
- Amazing resources for app development.- Consists of libraries, podcasts, books etc.
Conclusion:
So far we have seen that you can speed up your mobile app development by using various amazing tools and resources. Hence, you can build better and more profitable mobile apps by using the above tools. You only have to remember that you should discover and understand how these tools work inside. An application template accelerates the whole development now, but beyond the start-up phase, pays dividends to invest in a graphic designer.
However, building on a cloud-based background service is convenient, but in some cases, it’s smarter to create your own web services. The smartest mobile app developer knows when to use which tool and has a diverse set of tools in his toolkit. By hiring such mobile app developers as a reliable mobile app development company can benefit your business in the long run.