Mobile Application Development Challenges

Because of the advancements with Web technologies over the Internet, a variety of apps providing rich content and services are now easily accessible from ones desktop. These apps have the potential to play the same role for mobile devices. However, the mobile Internet suffers from inherent problems that pose several challenges to a developer willing to create applications that can run on mobile devices.

Most of the differences between fixed and mobile user experience fall in these categories:
• Types of content
• Presentation due to screen real-estate
• Network and device capabilities
• Context in which the content is received. An example of the content issues involved is a large bitmap. The bitmap may be unsuitable for use on a mobile device and it would need to be resized or cropped, while maintaining the relevant information.

Examples of device and access network capabilities that need to be considered because of possible technical or economic implications for a mobile user include:
• Bandwidth - Basic cellular radio access often offers lower bandwidth than a fixed connection
• Battery - Battery capacity is very constrained in mobile devices - certain activities tend to increase power consumption and shorten battery life
• Capabilities - like screen size, memory size, etc. Eg. The most important information has to appear at the top of the screen ensuring first view
• Cost - Cellular network connectivity is commonly charged per data volume
• Input - Mobile device input capabilities tend to differ, but are usually more constrained than in desktop terminals
• Memory - Significantly less working memory and storage is available on mobile devices than in desktop terminals
• Processing power - Significantly less processing power is available on mobile devices than in desktop terminals
• Text input - Text input tends to be very slow and cumbersome on a mobile device

Any application that needs to be successful in the mobile world will need to address the above challenges in a suitable way.

Keep watching this space for ways to address the above challenges…. J