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Choosing the best approach for mobile app development is crucial in increasing its chances of success in the two most prominent and competitive app deployment platforms, Google Play and Apple App Store. Google Play had 3.55 million apps in the third quarter of 2022, while the Apple app store had nearly 2 million, thus a strategically planned mobile app development approach is required to ensure your mobile app can succeed in such a competitive market.
A good development strategy is also the best way to ensure building a great UI and user-friendly experience in your mobile app. It is because the development strategy includes frequent reviews and improvements during the app development process, removing any elements that could damage the functionality or user experience of the application.
6 Types of App Development Approaches
Which strategy would be suitable for your app or which would not is something you must evaluate with your developers and choose one that guarantees the most lucrative outcome for your app and business. However, knowing the approaches will give you a headstart in terms of business growth.
Native App Development

Native app development includes an OS-specific development approach where developers build a high-performance mobile app for a single operating system like iOS or Android. Building a native app for your business is a worthwhile investment toward a quality software product.
Native mobile apps generally have
- high performance
- uniquely advanced user experience
- better customization
- enhanced security
- more scalability
- fewer errors and bugs, and
- offline compatibility.
Building a native app for a single operating system gives you one unique and original application targeting a specific user base and creating an app for every operating system like Android, iOS, and macOS gives your business multiple unique and high-performance applications. Such applications for your business can make your brand stand out in a competitive market.
Due to their high performance and better user experience, securing a loyal user base is not much of a problem with native apps, the reason why choosing it is the best approach for mobile app development is that can likely end in a profitable outcome.
Cross-platform Development
Cross-platform development is a process where developers use a single reusable codebase to build a mobile application for multiple operating systems like iOS, Android, macOS, and Windows. Whether you are a startup or a small established business, choosing cross-platform is the most cost-effective way to build a good-performance app that can reach the user base of all operating systems.
Choosing Cross-platform app development through frameworks like Flutter leads to faster development and deployment, multi-platform accessibility, wider market reach, lower development costs, fewer coding hours, and easy maintenance. Due to a similar user experience and functionality on multiple platforms, users find it easy to rely on a cross-platform mobile app, leading to an increased user base and customer retention.
Agile Methodology

Unlike Waterfall (which follows a sequential approach for app development), Agile includes an incremental approach with iterations, frequent reviews, and improvement during the development process. Such an approach helps identify design flaws, coding errors, or bugs as you develop the app, leading to an error-free and user-friendly app once the development is complete.
Agile methodology can improve team productivity and product quality while accelerating the process and preventing errors, and flaws in the development direction. Choosing Agile for your app development project leads to top-tier products designed to meet every requirement of target users through an attractive UI and a highly convenient user experience.
It is a highly effective mobile app development approach that can ensure lasting success for almost any mobile application.
Monetization Strategy
Although choosing monetization models may seem like a post-development task, you must plan and incorporate it into the process from the beginning. Putting multiple effective monetization models into your mobile app is a great way to create streams of revenue that will make your business money after deployment. The usual monetization model involves paid advertising, in-app promotions, service charges, payment fees, and premium account subscriptions.
For example, you can create a free account on LinkedIn, but there is also the option of a premium account with better features and multiple benefits. Including such monetization models in your mobile app gives your business many ways to generate revenue through a single platform.
However, the success of the monetization model depends on the value your app provides to target users. For example, you must include personalization in the paid ads you put inside your app as showcasing irrelevant advertisements to users leads to app uninstallations and customer defections.
You must plan these things before development begins and choose a monetization strategy that works best for your mobile app and target audience. It will help you ensure reliable streams of revenue for your app and better ROI for your business.
App Marketing

App marketing may not technically be a part of the development process, but it is crucial in ensuring its success. As mentioned above, the competition on app deployment platforms like Google Play and Apple app store is always high. Building a value-driven mobile app is only the first step toward success.
You also must spread awareness and increase discoverability for your app through app store optimization (ASO), promotions, social media marketing, influencer marketing, and by getting your app featured on Google Play and Apple app store. Using such app marketing methods will help you capture target user attention and put a spotlight on your app.
App marketing is one of the most effective types of app development approaches you can use to increase the chances of success for your app.
Outsourcing to Offshore Developers
Finding the right mobile app developers is not always easy, and finding the ones that charge affordable/reasonable prices is even more difficult. When building an app, you are taking a risk with your money since ensuring success for a mobile is not as easy today as it was a few years ago, it is critical to find the right partner who will value your resources and time.
Basically, you have three options when choosing app developers for your project – hire an in-house team, hire freelancers, or outsource to onshore or offshore developers.

Hiring an in-house team and outsourcing to onshore developers are expensive choices that may not necessarily guarantee the results you will expect from your app. Choosing freelancers is not always ideal since they are not easy to manage and unreliable when confidentiality is essential in your app development project. That is why outsourcing to offshore developers from India or Ukraine is the best mobile app development approach you can choose for a cost-effective and success-driven experience.
Offshore developers have a better understanding of the local and global target audience of your application. They also provide top-tier development solutions at much more affordable/reasonable costs than onshore developers. In short, offshore developers are financially the best choice you can make to utilize your project budget effectively toward a successful outcome.
Conclusion
Essentially, the best approach for mobile app development projects is the one that promises lasting revenue and growth for your business. You can plan and strategize well before you take any steps in the development project. It will help you pick the direction and approach most beneficial for your budget and business.
However, the quickest way to choose a suitable development approach for your app is by consulting with experienced mobile app developers. They have experience with incorporating the right strategy in multiple app development projects.