Mobile App Developers Face Major IT Challenges

App development

Mobile App Developers Face Major IT Challenges

A new survey finds that mobile application developers are struggling with both APIs and backend services.

Reasons for Building Mobile Apps

60.4% of respondents reported building apps to generate revenue. Of those, 43% said that in-app purchases were the best method for making money. Only 19% said they charged for the app itself. Customer loyalty (46%) and awareness (37%) came in second and third as primary reasons for building mobile apps.

The Trouble With Mobile Apps

72.4% said that getting mobile-optimized access to backend data is becoming the biggest challenge to building apps. The number is even higher (79%) for developers at companies with more than 5,000 employees, which is likely a reflection of all the legacy systems those organizations tend to have.

Where Mobile App Development Time Goes

34% said the time spent on backend integration is more than half the total development effort. Another 41% reported that anywhere from a quarter to a half of their development efforts are spent integrating to backend systems.

Top Mobile App Development Challenges

Tasks involving the building and deploying of mobile APIs ranked highest, at 47%. Debugging API problems and or gaining access to logs came in second, at 43%, followed by finding documentation for APIs (41%) and creating new API documentation (39%).

Top Enterprise Data Sources

Custom Web Services dominates the list of enterprise data sources, at 75%, followed by MySQL databases (50%), enterprise content management systems (30%), enterprise Websites (28%) and Microsoft SQL Server databases (28%).

Top Public Data Sources

Facebook leads the way, at 55%, followed by Twitter (41%), Google+ (33%) and Dropbox (31%).

Top Emerging Mobile Markets

For the second year in a row, home automation devices lead the pack, with 58.5% of developers saying they’re “very interested” in building apps for the segment. Wearable devices for specific job functions and wearable devices for health care came in next, at 53% and 44%, respectively.

Interest in Emerging Apple Platforms

61% are interested in the Apple Watch as a platform. Only 39.2% reported being “very interested” in building apps for Apple TV.

Rapid Mobile App Development Progress

Among developers who’ve tried low-code rapid mobile application development tools, only about one-fourth described the experience as positive. More than half (58.9%) were neutral; 16% were negative.