Reasons to Use Cloud Mobile Apps
The mobile application development industry evolves rapidly and offers more convenient and effective mobile solutions to companies from many spheres.
For example, the development of progressive web apps allows businesses to expand their influence across multiple platforms, reaching more audiences on a variety of devices.
And the use of the latest trends like Augmented reality or Artificial technology-driven chatbots helps to make apps more attractive, enhancing customer experience.
A new trend in mobile development is transferring mobile applications to cloud platforms. This opens new opportunities for businesses in many ways.
Cloud solutions enhance mobile apps, making them more secure, easier to scale, cheaper to develop, and offer a lot more benefits.
In this article, we uncover:
- What are cloud mobile apps?
- The advantages of cloud mobile apps.
- How your business can benefit from cloud mobile apps.
What are Cloud Mobile Apps?
Cloud mobile apps have much in common with web applications.
Both can be accessed via the Internet through a web browser, and both store their data externally.
In the meanwhile, cloud mobile applications offer more functionality than web apps and are often considered as an advanced version of web apps.
Unlike web apps, cloud mobile apps:
- store data in a cloud and download the needed data temporarily on a user’s device, allowing its offline usage;
- allow access to app functionality over a browser or through a custom app installed on a mobile device;
- provide a wider range of services like scalability depending on customer needs.
Cloud Mobile Application Benefits
Let’s have a closer look at the advantages of cloud mobile apps and how they can make your business more effective.
Cross-Platform Functionality
Cloud mobile apps are cross-platform. It means that they run perfectly well on iOS, Android, or Windows-based devices. Cloud mobile apps unlike native apps don’t require any installation and can be accessed through a web browser.
As a result, software developers don’t need to build an app with the same functionality for each mobile platform but create one app version for all platforms.
Moreover, as the installation isn’t necessary, cloud mobile apps store all their app-related data in a cloud. This feature helps to:
- save space on mobile devices, not overloading them with data;
- automatically update apps in clouds;
- avoid the necessity to match app versions, as it would be in the case of native app development;
- eliminate the necessity to choose the platform to develop for first.
Moving from platform-dependable development to cross-platform applications makes mobile apps development and maintenance cheaper, reduces time to market, and expands apps’ presence on mobile devices.
Secure Data
Cloud mobile apps store data in the cloud. Therefore, the risk of losing data or having any data malfunctioning is minimal in comparison with storing data on a device.
For example, mobile devices can have critical errors or users can lose their gadgets. In these cases, the data may be recovered partly or lost forever.
However, when data is stored in a cloud, it can be accessed from any gadget and any time once there’s an internet connection.
Moreover, cloud security systems have their own data protection layers. For example, two-factor authentication for data access, end-to-end data encryption, antivirus scanning, and much more.
Data Security is especially important when your business handles user personal data, business transactions, or healthcare data storage.
And cloud-based solutions are ready to provide a high level of security for these business operations.
Easy Data Recovery
When data is stored on a local server, there is always a risk that this server can be damaged or destroyed. While in the cloud users’ data is placed on multiple servers.
This ensures that the data can be effectively backed up any minute a user makes a request.
Also, it minimizes the chances of accidents or breakages thus leading to minimal system downtimes.
Scalability
When building a mobile application, it’s important to focus not only on the development process but foresee its further life-cycle stages.
Any app requires more functionality as it grows, various enhancements to meet customers’ needs, or adding and removing features that help a company’s product to evolve.
Therefore, it’s important to schedule future updates and adapt the app to market demands.
Cloud solutions allow scaling apps with minimum disruption to none.
While with native apps software developers can take days to add a new feature and after verify that other app’s functionality still works.
Saving in Time and Costs
App budget and app development time are the two critical factors that determine the success of an app in the market. The budget determines the number of features customers can include in their apps.
And the faster the app is deployed, the more popularity it can gain among users.
In these regards, cloud mobile application development represents the best option.
The development of an app for one mobile platform might take up to 12 months, depending on the features a customer wants to add in it.
When companies opt for cloud mobile development, they need to develop only for one platform.
This means that the development will take not more than a year.
In the case with native apps, software developers may spend 2 years building an app for Android and then for iOS.
One-time development for all platforms also significantly reduces app costs.
As it minimizes the development time, there is no need to gather development teams for each platform, and it isn’t necessary to use different development stacks depending on a mobile platform.
However, all these problems a customer can easily face when it comes to native mobile development.
Conclusion
Cloud mobile apps is a new wave in mobile development that rapidly grows in its popularity.
More and more companies opt for this solution as it allows building robust, multifunctional, and secure apps in shorter periods of time and for a lower budget.
Besides that, cloud mobile apps provide a great user experience.
They are easily accessible on any mobile platform, can be used offline, don’t overload gadgets with app data, and are very adaptable.
The combination of all these factors helps businesses to attract more customers and successfully meet their demands, resulting in wider business expansion and increased revenues.