The latest Developer Economics survey is now live, ready to measure the pulse of the developer ecosystem, helping the world understand developers and vice versa. We are calling all developers to shape the future of software development. Here are a few facts about our developer surveys: This is the 17th edition of the semi-annual Developer […]

Creating versions of an app for multiple platforms (at least iOS & Android) is an increasingly common requirement. Building and maintaining native code for every platform supported is both difficult and expensive. Cross-Platform Tools (CPTs) offer a solution to this problem by enabling sharing of code across platforms and in many cases a single code base can target multiple platforms. With such significant cost savings available, why don’t all developers use CPTs?

Alexis Piperides, co-founder and CEO of Proto.io, takes us on a tour across the fascinating landscape of prototyping tools. In these early days of iterative design of mobile applications, can tools and services help to drive perfection?

On the surface, advertising seems like a fairly simple and easy to implement business model for an app. Decide on some places to display ads, integrate one or more third party ad services and wait for the money to start rolling in. If you do this without a clear plan for how and why users will interact with ads in your app you’ll probably find the revenue disappointing. Optimise revenue by growing your user base, increasing engagement…

Creating a successful app business takes a lot more than a good idea and the skills to develop an app and upload it to a store. As we’ve discussed before, developers who promote their apps are almost 3 times as likely to break-even as those who don’t. This is the simplest difference with a massive effect on success. It seems obvious…

Almost half of developers (49%) in our survey decide which apps to develop based on their own needs. Those same developers end up generating the least amount of revenue per app per month, indicating that they have a lot to learn in how they plan their app business. Naturally, planning a business based on own needs may yield a good customer understanding, but lacks the rigor of market research or of extending proven app recipes into new countries or verticals.

One question that divides opinion among developers is when to start marketing your app. Some say if you start marketing too soon, the early interest you create will dissipate before you actually have something to sell. Others argue that you can’t start talking about your app soon enough, build a following of early adopters and […]

There’s a lot of buzz about Lean Startups in the software community in general and amongst mobile developers in particular. How lean a startup can be is strongly influenced by the tools and processes available on their chosen platform. Which platforms enable the leanest product development processes? How and why does lean framework matter? Why […]