Toronto iOS, watchOS and tvOS Development | iPhone, Apple Watch, Apple TV Development company in Toronto, Canada

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Bringing to life an iOS app that meets and even exceeds expectations requires a solid development plan and an experienced and skilled iOS app developer who can put it into practice. Deciding who to entrust your app project to – an app development company or an expert app programmer – can be a challenge, as there are many factors that you have to take into account.

Key factors include the type of app you are building, your budget, how fast you want it developed, whether you want to receive ongoing support for your app, and what other app-related services you need besides development, e.g. marketing and promotion. To make the right choice, you should fully understand the main factors governing your decision, as well as the pros of cons of working with development companies and independent programmers.

Type of App You Want to Build

An app that offers Internet services or advanced mapping solutions, for instance, is inherently more sophisticated than a currency converter or a simple document viewer. While an experienced and talented iOS app programmer may be able to build any kind of app for you, he or she cannot provide the same manpower as an iOS app development company.

A good iOS app development company usually features a team of creative software developers who can use their interdisciplinary experience in areas such as graphic design, customer support, and marketing to polish and refine your app until it shines. The more complex your iOS app is and the more features you want to pack into a user-friendly interface, the more valuable becomes the combined experience and expertise an app development company can offer you.

Your Budget

Expert iOS programmers may work as freelancers, which means you can hire them online. Because they work alone, they will normally charge you less for their services than an iOS app development company. More than that, with a freelancer you may be able to negotiate the total development costs, whereas app development companies may charge set fees for their services.

While working with an iOS app programmer means initially lower development costs, you must consider the value you are getting for your money. A programmer can write beautiful code for your app, but he or she may not have the time to exhaustively test your app to screen out bugs and provide high-quality, long term support, which ultimately diminishes the return on investment you get for your app. You don’t want to overspend on your iOS app development project, but you probably want to get the best value for your money. For this reason, working with the best iOS app development company you can afford can actually turn out to be the most cost-effective decision, helping you keep in check long-term app maintenance and development costs.

Development Time

If you want your app to hit the App Store as fast as possible, before your competitors gain an edge over you, a swift development phase is crucial for your success. Wireframing, designing, and building an app can take anywhere from a few days to several months, depending on what APIs are involved, how many features have to be developed, or how much testing is necessary to screen out bugs and provide a smooth user experience. If the actual duration of the development stage is important for you, working with the best iOS app development company you can afford can prove to be a more inspired choice than working with an expert iOS app programmer. The company can put at your disposal a team of developers who can complete the project faster – the total workload is divided between developers, and features can be tested by a separate team as they are being developed.

Ongoing Support

Successful iOS apps are not launched and then forgotten. Once the initial version is released, they are continually updated and improved. User feedback is acted upon, so that bugs get fixed, new features are added, and even design changes are made if necessary. Entrusting the continual improvement of your app to the company or programmer who build your app, rather than to another, helps to ensure cohesion and keeps the app design aligned to your vision.

It is possible for an expert iOS app programmer to provide ongoing support for your app, but you must think well into the future. What if the programmer will begin working on a major project in a few months’ time or get a job with an agency or company? Will he or she still be able to provide you with the promised ongoing support? Reputable programmers will offer some support, but they may not be willing to promise long-term support that they know they may not be able to offer. Choosing to work with a reputable app development company proves again to be the safer choice. An iOS app development company with a good portfolio that specializes in app development will likely continue to be in business one, three, even five years after your app is launched.

App Management and Marketing

Building a great app doesn’t necessarily guarantee that it will be successful – a certain amount of online marketing that combines the benefits of search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, and perhaps also paid advertising, is necessary to bring exposure to your app. At the same time, new versions of the app have to be managed, the App Store page for the app has to be optimized to make it easier to discover, and user feedback left on the app page, as well as on social pages has to be monitored and turned into constant app improvements. All of this requires more work than many iOS app programmers can invest in your app. The best iOS app development companies, on the other hand, have more resources and can provide app marketing and management services alongside their app development services.

The Bottom Line

As you can see, if you want to develop an iPhone or iPad app, hiring the best iOS app development company you can afford is in many ways safer than working with a freelance or independent iOS app programmer. This is especially true if you are in a competitive industry and want to build a sophisticated and well-crafted app with powerful features, that can provide a smooth, bug-free user experience, and that can become an effective marketing tool for your business.