The 8 Mobile App Development Challenges Of 2024 [+Solutions]

Introduction

Want a surefire way to grow your customer base?

Develop a mobile app.

A mobile app can serve various purposes from engaging customers, streamlining operations, increasing brand awareness, and providing best-in-class user experiences.

No matter which industry you work in, from social media to eCommerce and healthcare, a mobile application can accelerate your business growth.

As per Statista, the Apple App Store has 1.96 million apps and Google Play Store has 2.87 million apps available for download.

So developing an app that stands against millions of apps is a big challenge for mobile app developers.

But this is not all! There are many mobile app development challenges that can hinder your business.

So before you start your mobile app development project, consider these 8 challenges for mobile development in 2024.

We discuss in detail how to solve these mobile app development issues. But first, let’s look at why mobile app development is a must for your business.

Why Mobile Apps Are Essential For Your Business?

Mobile applications are not just another strategy to grow your business.

In today’s digitalized world, mobile apps can make the difference between success and massive business losses.

In the United Kingdom, people spend an average of 4.14 hours every day on their smartphones, as per Statista research.

People want everything at the touch of their fingertips.

So if you are not available to them on-demand, instantly on their phones, you do not exist for your customers.

So mobile applications are the next big step for your business.

There are many use cases for your mobile application such as:

1. Enhanced customer engagement

Mobile applications provide personalized user experiences.

With better user information, you can provide tailored content and targeted services to your customers.

Plus you can foster customer loyalty by building long-lasting relationships with your users through the app.

2. Increased brand visibility

One of the biggest advantages of mobile apps is their ability to build your brand.

You can give voice to your brand and increase visibility and awareness of your brand.

By ensuring constant presence in front of your users, you also ensure brand retention.

3. Seamless user experience

Mobile apps offer intuitive interfaces and optimized functionalities, delivering a delightful user experience.

User-friendly apps increase customer satisfaction, boost conversion rates, and encourage repeat business.

4. Data-driven insights

You can get valuable data on user behaviour and personal preferences from your app.

With this data you can make informed business decisions, creating target marketing and sales strategies.

Plus you can offer in-app promotions, exclusive discounts, and personalised offers to ensure your customers keep coming back.

8 Mobile Application Development Challenges And How To Solve Them?

The mobile development process has many stages, from the ideating and designing phase to coding and development to the final app launch and maintenance.

Each of the stages of the mobile app development process comes with its own set of challenges.

So let’s have a look at how you can solve some of the biggest challenges of mobile application development.

#1. Market Research

The biggest challenge of developing mobile applications is understanding your users and the market.

Before you even start thinking of how your app looks or works, it is important to recognize why you are building the app.

“What problem does your app solve?” is a question you have to answer.

It is very hard to compete with the millions of apps in the market released every day.

To get on top, it is very essential to define the WHY of your mobile solution.

Without an adequate understanding of your market, your app will get lost. No matter how much money and time you invest in building your product, no one will use it.

Solution:

Get to know your target audience by conducting user surveys, and focus groups.

What kind of solution do they need? What similar apps are they using already? What features are missing that they want?

Analyse your competitors.

See how you can provide a better solution compared to them. Before you write a single line of code, conduct due research and validate your idea.

#2. Budget Management

The most common challenge of mobile app development is the budget.

The cost of mobile app development varies a lot depending on your mobile app idea.

As there is no fixed cost for application development, it can be tough to calculate and manage cash flow.

Moreover, there are always a few additional costs and some unexpected expenses may also come up.

Therefore budgeting is one of the biggest problems of mobile app development.

Here is how you can solve this app development challenge.

Solution:

Calculate the cost of application development for your mobile app idea.

Consider various factors such as app development tools and technologies, platform and app store fees and development resources.

The development team is one of the major factors when you calculate the cost of developing mobile apps.

Hiring mobile app testers, UI designers, developers, QA engineers, and graphic designers is vital for building a good application.

We also recommend considering the cost of launching and post-launch expenses.

Marketing, user research and acquisition, regular maintenance and cost of new updates.

In this total value keep a margin of unexpected costs and you will be able to manage your app investment efficiently.

Recommended Read: How to Outsource App Development in the UK

#3. Deciding Platform for App Development

One of the first mobile app challenges you will face is the platform for developing your app.

It is often necessary to have an app for multiple platforms – iOS and Android.

But both these platforms are different and developing an app specifically for each platform is a tedious job.

It comes with a completely different UI-UX from different navigation, scrolling and features.

The biggest problem is that each platform requires different expertise in a programming language, tools, and frameworks.

So do you build native apps or cross-platform apps? How do you decide?

Solution

First of all, analyse your target audience and see which platform they use the most.

If you want an app for both iOS and Android, consider cross-platform app development frameworks and tools.

Consider very seriously if you have the time and budget for native iOS and native Android development.

Hiring mobile app developers that are well-versed in app development can help you solve this issue.

#4. User Experience Design

Another mobile app challenge is creating a user-centric UI that follows the user interface guidelines.

You need to create a unique, interactive user experience that hooks your target audience.

Accessibility, usability, and performance are other core factors to consider parallelly when it comes to enhancing user experience.

The mobile application has to be responsive, stable, and quick to work with the user’s demand.

In terms of technical elements, the interface needs to fit all screen sizes – mobile devices, tablets and iPads.

It has to have seamless navigation and should be intuitive to use.

Solution:

Hire experienced UI/UX designers who can help with custom mobile app design.

You can test out the UI with focus groups to ensure your app design is human-centric.

#5. The Tech Stack to Use

There are a huge number of mobile development frameworks and libraries available today.

But you have to be very careful in choosing your tech stack.

There are libraries for security, cloud integration, API integrations, UI elements, and much more.

Some mobile app frameworks are very good for native app development and some tools can help in wireframing and UI designing.

There are mobile frameworks like Ionic and Flutter that are used for cross-platform mobile application development.

But choosing the wrong framework can affect not only the way your app is built but future maintenance and support too.

Therefore ensure that you choose the right tech stack for mobile app development.

Solution:

• Analyse your requirements.
• Check the complexity of your app
• The features and functionalities you want to include.
• Do you want scalability?
• Do you want high performance?
• Do you require high speed?
• How many users are using it simultaneously?
• What platforms are you developing for?
• What security features do you include?
• Do you want to develop a mobile app with real-time data or live features?

Choose your technical stack based on all these questions.

#6. Performance Optimisation

Performance optimisation is another big challenge in developing a mobile application.

Several factors affect the performance of an app such as inefficient code, poor graphics, too many network requests, or lack of data storage.

Without good performance, your app can lag or freeze up.

There might also be some heavy load features that can make the app crash.

Therefore performance optimization is a must before launching your app.

Solution:

Let’s look at each of these in detail to understand the solutions.

• Inefficient code: There are several reasons why your code can be inefficient – poor algorithms, poor data structures, excessive function calls, memory leaks, inefficient input/output operation, resource contention, and lack of profiling.
  
  Ensure you hire developers with good coding experience to avoid such issues.
• Poorly optimised graphics: When you have large and uncompressed files and images it severely affects your application’s performance and user experience.
  
  There will be poorly rendered images and inefficient use of memory.
  
  To avoid this ensure working with professional UI/UX designers and performing proper quality assurance tests.
• Excessive network requests: Third on the list of performance optimization happens due to inefficiently optimised API calls, poorly synced data, inappropriate caching, poorly handled errors, and poorly transferred data.
  
  It is important to perform security checks and network optimization.

Performance issues can create a huge problem and lose a lot of customers.

The simplest way to solve this is to hire a top-notch mobile application development company that can develop high-performance mobile apps for you.

#7. Third-Party Integration

Third-party integrations are crucial to any app today. Let’s understand with an example.

Say you want to provide directions. There is no point in developing a navigation feature from scratch, which can take months and is very difficult to optimise.

Instead, you can just use the mapping API from google maps which is efficient and bug-free. Similarly, you can integrate payment gateways too.

But a big challenge in this is getting the proper permissions and integrating the third-party apps and APIs efficiently.

Otherwise, your mobile app can be tough to use and may not even function properly.

There can be compatibility and performance issues if it has not been integrated correctly.

Another major factor to consider is the security.

Third-party integrations are not secure and can expose your app to data breaches or malware attacks.

Lastly, some third-party apps may also require regular updates and maintenance, which can directly impact the functionality of the application.

Solution:

Integrating third-party services can be complex, so it is important to have knowledgeable mobile developers in your team with high-end expertise in APIs and SDKs.

#8. Security & Privacy

One of the biggest ways to gain a competitive edge in the mobile app market is to ensure high privacy and security for your mobile app users.

There are many apps in the market that collect user data without authorization.

Along with being illegal, these apps are bound to lose their customers and make huge losses.

Therefore it is important to assure your users about the privacy of their data.

There are many security concerns such as unauthorised data access & data leaks leading to financial loss, data theft, and identity damage.

This can occur due to a variety of reasons such as security of data storage, inefficient data transmission with leaks, or poor user authentication and authorization process.

One more way is the loss of data due to trackers when new updates are released.

Solution:

One of the biggest mobile app development challenges is inadequate data security measures.

To ensure you do not face such issues, perform regular security tests, especially after new rollouts. It is also important to ensure you follow various privacy regulations.

Conclusion

As discussed above, there are many problems and challenges that come up during the development of mobile apps.

The biggest challenges of the mobile app development process can be mitigated with preparation and proper research.

One of the most important pieces of advice from us is in choosing your mobile app development team.

Whether you hire freelancers or hire a mobile app development agency, ensure they have the expertise and skills to build a successful mobile application.

Want help developing a mobile app without any obstacles?

Contact us. We have the experience and the technical skills required to build a successful, industry-disrupting mobile app for you.