4 Essential Skills That Will Help You As A Mobile App Developer

The number of smartphones and handheld devices is increasing and so is our dependence on these devices. With such a huge dependence on smartphones, the mobile app industry continues to flourish, expand, and thrive, no matter what the economic conditions may be. Mobile app developers are the backbone of all of this as they are responsible for providing us with applications for things that we do on a daily basis and for this reason, they are in huge demand worldwide.

Even though the demand for mobile app developers is high, there is still a lack of talented and skilled developers in the industry. To be able to flourish in the mobile app development industry, you need to have a sound knowledge of the industry along with some skills that will come in handy throughout your career as an app developer. Below we have discussed some essential skills that will help you through the mobile app industry as a mobile app developer:

Deep Understanding Of Coding Languages
The core of mobile app development is coding. If you are not good at programming or don’t know how to code, you are not going to survive long enough in this industry. No matter what kind of app you are assigned to develop, at the core of all application development you will find coding. It is imperative that you have deep knowledge and understanding of the various languages that are required for coding on that platform. For instance, if you are working as an Android developer, having deep knowledge and understanding of Java is compulsory, and for iOS, Swift & Objective C.

Along with the languages that are used for development in your chosen platform, Android or iOS, it is also beneficial that you are also good at other areas such as web development and other languages like HTML, CSS, Javascript, Python, C#, Mobile APIs, etc as these will be very helpful for you during your career as a mobile app developer.

Although it is not the job of a mobile app developer to be a creative and capable front-end designer, it is an invaluable skill that will increase your value as a mobile app developer. Along with several other things, the user interface is one of the important things that are vital to the success of a mobile app. It is not the usual job of an app developer but sometimes being creative and having front-end designing skills will increase your demand which will help you land a lot of work.

Understanding Of User Interface
It is not necessary that you should be able to design a whole app interface from scratch but you should understand the difference between a poor user interface and a well-designed user interface and the importance of user interface in an app’s success. You should take some time to analyze some top applications from each category along with some simple, popular apps like Scrabble Word Finder and identify the features that make their user interface so good-looking and user-friendly.

This will allow you to come up with similar, user-friendly, and well-designed user-interface designs, and the next time a client approaches you, you will be able to give him/her useful suggestions regarding the user interface.

Knowledge Of Different Operating Systems
As a mobile app developer, you should also know all the operating systems. It is a good thing that there are only two popular mobile operating systems available, Android and iOS. Each operating system varies because of the difference between hardware and user preferences but you should know both of these operating systems well.

Sometimes, you will be asked to build an app for a single platform only like Android only app or iOS only app but sometimes, you will have to build an app like Anagram Solver for both platforms. Therefore, it is important that you should know both the operating systems and also understand the technical challenges that might stand in your way of building an app on different platforms.

Awareness Of The Low-Level Stuff
As an app developer, you should also beware of the low-level stuff which includes things like the power efficiency of the app, app loading times, storage consumption, memory usage, etc. For app developers, the knowledge of these things is highly important because you might build an app that is perfectly coded and has a nice, sleek, modern user interface but it loads too slowly. Such an app will force some users to find an alternative to your app since we are living in a fast-paced world and people no longer like waiting.

Having sound knowledge of low-level stuff that most people don’t take seriously will allow you to deal with a lot of complex problems without focusing too hard.