Porting a Mobile App: All You Need to Know
If you are into the mobile app development business, porting may not be a new term for you. However, in-depth knowledge about the what, why, and how of porting can help you understand it better, make the maximum use of it, and do it more skilfully.
What is meant by porting the mobile app?
By porting the mobile app, we mean changing the software programming to make it possible for the program to run with a different operating system than the program for which it was originally designed.
Why is porting needed?
Technology is changing at an enormous speed in the present time, and many changes are taking place every second throughout the world. As your business strategy and offerings may be progressing at a slower pace than most of these changes, a hopeless situation may result if you keep sticking to the conventional approaches for your services or products and keep waiting for some miracle to happen.
As your competitors must have already known that having a dedicated app for a single platform adds limitations to reach a different audience and earn more, they must have ported their dedicated apps to another platform giving a new face to their respective apps or may be transformed their approaches to serving the app services to beat you in the market competition.
Thus, it is essential to port your app to another platform if you want to compete with the market leaders and survive in an epic app battle.
An iPhone app developers needs to understand the importance of porting services and how to reuse the code. There have been many instances where clients may have started off with an iPhone app and later wanted to venture into other platforms. In fact, you need to be well-versed in porting an app to any platform irrespective of the platform it was first built on. Here are few additional reasons that will justify the need for porting your existing app to another platform.
- Helps your app take advantage of emerging platforms and approach new market
Your app can make the best use of emerging platforms like windows and serve a large user base as it accesses a new market. By converting your iOS app to Android or vice versa, you raise your app’s chances of acquiring the world mobile market by extending its accessibility to new regions and countries.
- Your app is more likely to bring in higher profits after porting
By porting app, your app gets the advantage of two apps that act as two sources of revenue. You can take advantage of multiple platforms by getting a higher ROI. Moreover, by being selective in porting successful apps only, you can save a lot of money. While your app may get more downloads in Android and get more revenue from the in-app ads, it is more likely to be bought at a higher price by iOS users and avail higher rates of in-app purchases.
- Your app gets cross-platform accessibility and can avail two apps benefit
By porting you give cross-platform accessibility to your application along with other advantages of having multiple apps. These advantages include the benefits of having multiple marketing tools to promote your app start-up, multiple means of commutation with your audience, and multiple ways of earning.
How to port an iOS app to Android and vice versa?
Plan the porting process
There are four major steps involved in the planning process for porting an app to another platform in an efficient manner.
- Analyse your present app deeply: You need to analyse your existing application for figuring out the process flow and understand the functionalities, behaviour, and working process of the mobile app.
- Make the existing app free from bugs/ issues: Before porting a particular mobile app to another platform, you need to ensure that the mobile app is free or any bugs or issues and propose the best solutions for the app first.
- Understand the complete technology stack and backend: You need to be able to comprehend well the UI components, frameworks, code structure, and architecture of the app for ensuring that the porting process is carried out in an effective, fast, and smooth manner.
Steps that need to be followed for porting iOS app to Android and vice versa
- Create the architecture for the new app: In order to get a better clarity of the design, flow, and functionality of the new app, the first step is to create the architecture of the new app.
- Create a platform-specific UI/UX design: You need to keep both the design of the existing app and the specification of the new platform into consideration while designing the UI/UX for the new app.
- Implement the adaptations: This step involves implementing the adaptations for final porting after verification to check the existing mobile app for the features, functionality, and flow of the new app.
- Test the new app: After porting the app completely, it needs to be tested as per the guidelines of beta testing, integration testing, and validation testing.
- Launch the new app: After testing your new app is finally ready for publishing live on the Play store or app store for your targeted audience.
How long does it take to port an app?
The time taken for porting an app depends on the number of developers working on the project and the quality of their work. A single developer or freelancer may take even more than 12 months in porting the design, features, and functionalities of the existing app. On the other hand, an expert app development company, having a dedicated development team, may save much time taken during the whole process.
What is the cost of porting an app to another platform?
Porting an app is not much different from developing an app from scratch, just on a new platform. The cost of porting depends on several factors like features, platform, functionalities, frameworks, design (UI/UX), complexity, etc.
Hope you are clear with the entire process of porting an app now. So, get started with your app today and enjoy the process. Happy porting!
