Android and iOS app development

Android and iOS

A mobile app lives under conditions a website never faces. It is used one-handed, on a screen the size of a palm, on a connection that drops in a lift, on a battery someone is trying to make last until evening. An app that ignores any of those is uninstalled inside a week regardless of what it does.

So the constraints come first: what works with a thumb, what happens offline, what the app costs in battery and data, and how quickly it becomes usable after a cold start. Those decisions shape the build from the beginning rather than being patched in after the first round of one-star reviews.

Design for the device

Android and iOS are not the same platform with different logos. Navigation patterns differ, the back gesture differs, permissions are requested and revoked differently, and users of each have firm expectations about how an app should behave.

We follow the conventions of each platform rather than forcing one design onto both. An app that behaves like an Android app on Android and an iOS app on iOS feels correct in a way that no amount of visual polish can substitute for.

The parts that decide whether it works

Offline behaviour is the first. An app that shows an error the moment the signal drops is broken in ordinary use, so state is held locally and synchronised when the connection returns, with conflicts resolved deliberately rather than by whichever write happened to land last.

Then performance: startup time, scroll smoothness and memory under real data volumes, not the twelve test records that make everything look fast. Then permissions, asked for at the moment they make sense and with the app still working if they are refused. Then notifications that are worth receiving, because the alternative is being switched off permanently.

Getting it into the stores

Store release is its own piece of work and it is where inexperienced projects lose weeks. Google Play and the App Store each have review processes, privacy disclosures, data-safety declarations, signing and provisioning requirements, and content rules that are enforced unevenly and rejected without much explanation.

We handle that: builds signed and submitted correctly, listings and screenshots prepared, privacy and data-safety forms filled in accurately, and the back-and-forth with review handled through to approval. After launch, crash reporting and staged rollouts so a bad build reaches a small percentage of users rather than all of them.

Backend included

Almost every app is a client for something. Accounts, sync, payments, push and the data itself all live on a server, and an app is only ever as reliable as the API behind it.

We build both. The backend is designed alongside the app rather than assumed, which is what keeps the two from disagreeing about how the product is supposed to work.