5 Fundamental Tips to Develop an iOS App

Editor’s Note: Gaurav Sharma is a guest contributor for Colocation America’s blog. His thoughts are his own.

Developing a smartphone app is not easy, as the trends for developing a mobile app are changing, it is becoming competitive for developers to create sophisticated apps. A full fledged mobile app takes a lot of effort, experiments, and research.

Thus, Apple is very specific about the type of applications they choose and keep in the Apple iTunes store. It is known for rejecting and blocking apps that shows any adult or political content. There is a list of reasons why Apple rejects any application.

If you are an experienced app developer then I am sure you must be aware of the Do’s and Don’ts of developing a smartphone app. But If you are a beginner, there are a dozen of things that you need to learn about the iOS app development. You need to be prepared for this war of competition and rejection, should be armed and intelligent enough to win it. So here are some key areas which people often forget to focus before they pitch in to make an iOS application.

Concentrate on Your Fundamentals

Learning the basics is very important, no matter what the subject is. Strong base of fundamental can keep you going and makes you a winner in the race. Let me put it up like this, before a child learns to run, he first learns how to walk, and before walking he starts crawling. Learning is a process and for an effective learning, you need to focus on the fundamentals.

If this is the first app you are developing for iOS, then definitely you need to learn a lot. You should start with learning the language used for iOS application development.  If you are not aware about SWIFT, then you should, it is a language used by Apple for iOS and OS X apps. It borrows ideas from a wide range of other programming languages, but is most similar to Objective-C. In fact, you can mix Swift, C, Objective-C, and C++, and your apps will still work.

To aid your learning, I would recommend you to start with a good book which can help in getting a detailed knowledge about these languages. My personal favorites are “Big Nerd Ranch Guide for Objective-C” and the Apple’s Guide for SWIFT.                                      

Once you become well versed with the languages used for iOS development, it’s time for you to learn everything else about the app development. For this I would propose you to join Apple’s Developer Programme, you can also take an awesome course offered by Stanford university. There is a variety of video lectures and blogs available which can help you in learning the tricks of iOS app development. After all, your ultimate motive is to learn something which is useful.

Understand Thoroughly the Apple App Store Review Guidelines

If you have been developing apps for a while now, you might have heard about the Apple App Store review process, if not, let me highlight something very crucial about it. Apple is very specific about accepting the apps in its app store, therefore it is insistent that before you start developing your app, you need to understand the guidelines thoroughly. If you don’t, you might be wasting your time carving something that Apple won’t allow in its App Store.

For instance,  your app will be rejected if it doesn’t adhere to the privacy guidelines of App store. Any App which transmits a user’s data without obtaining the user’s prior permission and does not provide the information about how and where his/her data is used will be rejected.

As a lot of kids download apps these days, pornography or anything which displays such content is strictly restricted on the Apple App store.

Also, Apple app store has over 1.5 million applications in their store, therefore if your app does not provide anything exclusive or anything which provides plain entertainment to the users, it is likely to get rejected.

Likewise, if any app which includes the ability to make donations to the recognized charitable institutions must be free.

There are a number of reasons due to which your app may get rejected or selected for the Apple application store.  Here is a list of the top ten reasons for App Rejection by Apple.

Practice, Practice and Practice

“Practice makes a man perfect”

Somebody has said it correctly,  As in the process of practice, you make tons of mistakes and these mistakes make a man perfect. Mistakes are a proof that you are learning and growing.

Reading books and blog posts, enrolling for a course and taking all those video lectures won’t be enough. If you really have to develop something different, you need to practice a lot. So, start practicing all the new tricks that you read about. While you are practicing you can use a PC or netbook, but once you start developing the app you will have to test it on your Phone.

Paperwork

It is really important to understand how things work properly. Developing an app can be time consuming, but getting it on the app store may take much more time.

Getting an app on the Apple app store takes plenty of time and involves a lot of paperwork.

They have a lot of rules and regulations (some weird one’s too). All you need to do is to keep calm and be patient, while it may take a little extra time to get on board, once it will be there, it is going to rock the show. You can also refer to this amazing guide which can let you know about the process of becoming an Apple developer and assist you with the paperwork required.

Focus on iTunes App Description

Once your app gets selected to be available on the apple I store, you still need to think about certain things. One such important thing is to pay attention to the iTunes app description.

Don’t try to make an experiment with this. Study the hit apps available on the store, and follow the trick. If it worked for them, it will work for you as well.

Give a description tells about your app, describe all its special features and how is it different from all the available apps, followed by the most interesting screenshots.

Apple makes it convenient for the new apps to highlight themselves in its popular lists,  “What’s Hot” and” New and Notable list” which helps in increasing the number of downloads and making people aware about any new app hitting the store.

There is no short process which can help you get your app selected on Apple application store, but definitely there are a lot of things to learn which can give you a better chance to make it through. Don’t get disappointed if you have already tried and got rejected, there is a long way to go. Understand the reasons of rejection evaluate your application and work hard and the next time, flood them with something so unique and interesting that they may not be able to reject even if they want to.