Both iOS and Android accounted for $135 billion in global app revenue in 2023 with iOS being responsible for 66% of app consumer spending. With more than one million gaming apps and 3.83 million non-gaming apps, Apple’s output for delivering apps was at an all-time throughout its history.
Across the worldwide subscription revenue for apps ($45.6 billion combined for both Android and iOS), iOS users were responsible for 76% of that revenue.
With stats like these, it becomes quite clear that iOS app development is beloved across the world of app developers. However, as opulent as these numbers might look, it is certainly not a walk in the park to develop iOS apps.
One of the ways to develop seamless and hassle-free iOS apps is by addressing the pain points or issues regarding them during the development stages.
So if you are a general iOS user, this article might be informative to you and for our developers, therapeutic and solution-oriented! Hence, let us address these challenges one by one below.
Common Challenges in iOS App Development in 2024
It can be a nightmare for developers to tackle every issue associated with iOS app development. Some begin before even the process is initiated, and some persist until post-app maintenance. Let us break down each one and in the process, figure out the solutions to avoid them completely.
Challenges in the initial planning
Unclear Objectives and User Requirements
The most highlighting mistake that developers make is not communicating effectively with their clients. In such turmoil, the true purpose of the app is not conveyed and both the parties suffer from this later on during the final phase. Having a clear vision and purpose for developing the app is quite important.
This is why user research becomes an integral part of the app development process. The acquired research and information must also be cross-diagnosed to validate its veracity.
This will help you develop a solution aligned with the user requirements which can aid in moving the project forward.
Project Scope
The scope of a project is not enough mentioned while discussing the common issues a developer faces in iOS app development. The lack of prior vision of your project can disrupt it from harnessing its true potential.
Regardless of the scope being a mountain of complexities or something so trifling that the client is uninterested in paying for it, the lack of it can result in a waste of resources and effort.
However, this is a grandiose view of the lack of project scope in the development strategy. The main purpose of the scope of the project is how to protect the process from threats such as:
- Overextending the project timeline and budget
- At the midpoint, a change in the primary project goals.
- Consistently changing the project requirements.
- Unable to meet the expected results.
Choosing the Right Architecture
Structuring your app’s core becomes a priority when you are planning to develop an iOS app. In other words, you need to ensure the kind of architecture you want to go with to develop features, contexts, and screens.
It also entails a long list of keeping your app organized in the long term, scalable, testable, and interpretable to random developers entering the project in the future.
As a result, good architecture steps in to make such things happen, and below are a few models that can help in accomplishing this.
- Model View Controller- This version splits your code into three parts- Model, View, and Controller. Model is the business logic and data state. The view determines the visual seen by the user in the app. The controller interacts with the line of sight and the model.
- Model View Presenter- Similar to the one mentioned above except for the final component, MVP tackles the issues faced by MVC. The Presenter accumulates data from the model and implements UI logic to interpret what the user should see.
- Model-View-ViewModel- Similar to MVP, the ViewModel component inherits the role of the Presenter. The issues faced by MVP are overcome by MVVM. This model separates the business logic from the data presentation logic part of the application.
User Interface and Experience Challenges
It is quite important to consider the various screen sizes and resolutions that the users might possess.
Optimizing your app for different screens and resolutions is a given demand for iPhone app development.
It confirms the quality and functionality of the app on various devices and screens regardless of their size and pixel density.
Some of the strategies to implement a functional UI/UX experience across all devices are:
1. Auto Layout
Auto Layout is a resourceful tool that helps in developing a UI layout that will automatically fit according to the different screen sizes or the resolution it is implemented for. This is the most convenient way to determine if your app looks great on other screens and sizes.
2. Design aligned with Pixel Density
When it comes to screen pixel sizes, not all screens have the same pixel densities.
For instance, the iPhone SE (2nd Generation) has way less pixels than the iPhone 15. Your app must be designed in a way that ensures it looks good on different devices.
3. High-quality Assets for all Screen Sizes
iOS optimization for different screens also includes components and elements such as images, videos, and fonts. Hence, make sure that these assets are high resolution and look amazing on all devices and screens, even the ones with high pixel densities.
App Store Complexities
The last step of developing an iOS app requires its release on a public platform that is accessible to your target audience and the world.
However, publishing an app on the App Store requires your app to be a class apart from the ordinary ones in the market. Hence, it is not easy to upload an app to the App Store as its guidelines will hinder it severely from being released around the world.
Some of these issues that your app might face on the App Store are:
A.) Unique
Since everything is a copy of a copy nowadays, the App Store makes it crystal clear to repudiate any apps that do not entail originality in their approach. The app idea needs to be fresh with innovative features. However, developing a unique app idea is not easy.
The only way to be unique is by researching the market and analyzing the pain points of other apps in the same niche to provide features to your target audience that other apps fail to provide.
This research will also aid you in understanding common app categories that you can skip and other types to which new features can be added.
B.) Quality
The content quality is another factor that can make or break your app on the App Store.
The guidelines clearly state that the content of your app must be appropriate, original, and innocuous to all audiences. So make sure to focus on content that highlights these major features.
Additionally, make sure to stay true to the app’s principles and streamline engaging content accordingly.
C.) Style
Unlike Android, Apple has strict guidelines for styling your app. These guidelines are associated with color, font, app icon design, and other visual elements.
To make sure your app gets approved, follow the Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) for iOS. Such guidelines will assist you in streamlining your app’s outlook and feel of other iOS apps.
Also, the correct font and color scheme will aid in making your app icon unique and follow Apple’s requirements.
Integration and Compatibility Issues
APIs are quite significant in building iPhone applications. They permit developers to increase functionality, integrate with third-party services, and access device features.
Some of the challenges in utilizing APIs in iPhone App Development are:
API Compatibility and Versioning Issues
API versions might have different functionalities and syntax. The lines of compatibility differentiating the API version and the app can get bleary especially while dealing with frequent updates and integrating multiple APIs.
Hence, developers need to be extra careful in dealing beforehand with API reliability and versioning issues to evade compatibility problems.
Third-Party Interferences
An app relying too much on a third-party service can eventually become highly dependent on the service. It’s functionality can be compromised if an API provider experiences downtime or belays its services.
To mitigate such issues, every iOS app developer must account for fallback mechanisms and additional solutions with external reliability.
Testing and Debugging Issues
Since the iPhone is all about quality and security, bugs become an integral part of the testing process. It is incumbent for developers to rigorously test the app through multiple trials to ensure the absence of bugs in it.
Just like in any other code, bugs can be a nightmare for the developer and equal parts of the user. Hence, there are certain testing and debugging strategies that iOS developers can implement to eradicate such elements:
Compatibility Testing
Due to the plethora of devices and OS versions available in the market, compatibility testing is necessary.
It verifies if your app is functioning optimally under varied conditions, screens, and devices allowing you to tap into a wider audience.
Unit Testing
This is another crucial aspect of iOS app testing. It requires careful examination of individual units such as methods, procedures, or functions of the application that operate perfectly fine.
By alienating each unit, developers can examine and eradicate flaws and bugs in the app early on which aids in debugging and managing future changes more seamlessly.
Functional Testing
This type of testing ensures the app’s functionality is streamlined to the entered input and expected output.
It typically vets through the application’s actions, whether it is user log-in or content sharing, making sure that the end user is delivered what they expected.
Security Testing
Besides the market demand, iOS boasts about the safety and security of its apps and devices. To meet the baseline Apple standards, developers intend to liberate the app from malicious elements that could be deleterious to the app’s functionality.
It reviews data breaches, unauthorized access, as well as portents to user privacy.
Usability Testing
This type of testing strategy examines the user-friendly nature and intuitiveness of the app.
This entails real-time users navigating the app offering developers concise insights about the app’s shortcomings and offering a better understanding of how users communicate with the app.
Performance Optimization Challenges
To provide a smooth and responsive user experience, it is important to understand the significance of the performance and speed of your app. Below are some key strategies on how you can calibrate your app better in terms of optimizing performance and speed.
Memory Management
It is quite common for memory leaks to occur while developing an iOS app. Retain cycles and memory leaks in iOS have the potential to manifest huge drawbacks to app optimization and efficiency.
It also brings forward issues such as increased memory consumption, retarded overall app performance, and random crashes. This is compounded by the complexity of memory leaks.
ARC or Automatic Reference Counting is a strategy that can help in avoiding memory leaks and crashes imposed by inconsistent memory management. This technique instantly and automatically manages memory for objects.
App Size Reduction
It can prove to be a drag for the users if it takes too long for your app to be installed from the App Store.
Quicker download times indicate happier users and customers.
This can be brought about by reducing the app size which, in return, enhances the installation time more quickly than usual. Some dynamic techniques helping in solving such an issue are modularization, optimizing third-party services, dynamic frameworks, and asset thinking.
Performance Testing and Continuous Optimization
To sustain app success, effective performance testing coupled with consistent optimization is necessary.
iOS developers assist in managing app competitiveness and responsiveness by applying automated performance testing, crash reporting, and user-centric improvement.
Conclusion
Now that you understand the general issues that encircle the world of iOS app development, it is time to peruse the solutions and implement them to solve these issues. Remember, if you hit a brick wall, there is always more than one solution to incorporate into your app strategy.
We hope that this article will assist you in finding the right solution for your app according to your budget and needs. Since there are a lot of issues that surround the development of an iOS app, equivalent solutions are also available at your expense to deal with them.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s)
1. What are the common challenges of iOS app development at the initial stages?
One of the most troublesome issues to face during the beginning phase of iOS app development is streamlining the client’s expectations with the technical parallels. It is also important to define set objectives as well as schedule a detailed project scope. Such things help later in the scaling of the app.
2. What are a few performance bottlenecks observed in iOS apps?
Some of the most common bottlenecks contain retarded network requests, inordinate CPU usability, unoptimized UI calibration, as well as a few memory leaks. Such shortcomings can break an iOS app which can prove to be detrimental to the business.
3. How do developers deal with issues regarding slower launch times?
It is rather significant for iOS app developers to identify bottlenecks at the beginning of the app development process. Techniques such as lazy loading and asynchronous loading make sure that a quick and seamless user experience awaits the user from the moment the app is released.
4. What are some strategies for memory management to overcome optimization issues?
Some of the strategies implemented by the developers for seamless memory management are object pooling, curtailing retained objects, as well as using instruments such as Xcode’s Memory Graph Debugger to identify as well as account for memory-related issues seamlessly.
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