Mobile development: who is it? what is it? We tell you about one of the most ...

rabiarahi

It is hard to imagine life without a phone. And it is even harder to imagine a phone without apps. That is why a mobile developer is one of the top 5 most in-demand professions in the world, according to the BBC. Let's figure out where such popularity comes from and why it is worth considering the mobile development direction if you want to enter IT.


A short historical excursion

People first started talking about a mobile communication device in April 1973. And only decades later, the ambitious creators of the iPhone and the Android smartphone made a real splash in social media marketing service the field of mobile development. A technological revolution took place, the demand for applications increased. The phone is no longer just a means of communication. The functionality has expanded, which means that it now needs to be used to the maximum.


Who is a mobile developer?

If you follow the logic, then this is someone who develops applications for mobile devices. However, he also creates products for tablets, smart watches, e-books and other gadgets, scientific devices, components of research systems.

In addition to direct programming, a mobile developer collaborates with other product departments, also takes part in testing various forms and stages of application creation, conducts a final review and uploads the finished product to the required platforms.

The range of tasks for a developer can be absolutely different. Everything depends on the company or, for example, on the product manager. In this case, a mobile developer is limited by the execution time and technical task.

Sometimes it also happens that creating an application is the developer's own idea. In this case, development is a completely creative process, without clear technical specifications and frameworks. But in this case, the field of responsibility expands. After all, the developer now not only writes a program, but also delegates processes among colleagues, conducts code reviews, gives advice, in a word, becomes a leader.


Spheres of activity

Mobile development has crept into all areas of business, media, entertainment today: many corporate applications have mobile versions, and mass media are increasingly acquiring a separate platform for posting their own content, various small and large retail chains are transferring their loyalty programs to mobile versions. Despite this, this area is relatively young and developing.

"The number of mobile devices sold is growing every day, thereby increasing the user base of applications. I believe that in the next 5-10 years we will not be presented with something radically new to replace smartphones. Therefore, we can safely develop in this direction" - Mikhail Morochko, iOS Developer at Cogniteq.
In mobile development, there are two distinct areas: by purpose and technical parameters.

By product purpose, there are:

1/ games and entertainment applications - a huge industry with multi-million dollar turnover;

2/ business - we have already talked about the fact that today mobile development is an integral part of any successful business project;

3/ education - the pandemic, damn it, has shown that in the 21st century you can also study productively and effectively anywhere in the world and for this it is not necessary to spend eight hours a day sitting at a school desk. Therefore, the development of educational applications will only gain momentum every year;

4/ banks - money is spinning, which means there is a need for mobile banks. Perhaps, after graduating from a university or courses, you will not get an internship there, since this is a very complex area that requires a competent developer with a large background. But this does not mean that the doors there are closed for middles and seniors ...

Mobile development is teeming with various platforms and frameworks for work. But among all this diversity, two groups can be distinguished: "native development" and "cross-platform development".

"Native development" means development in a language that was developed specifically for a specific platform (yes, tautology in IT is a matter of life). That is, this includes iOS and Android.

"Cross-platform" development, in turn, is not tied to any specific platform, but can easily exist on both Apple and the Green Man.
"Currently, cross-platform development has taken the form of non-competitive cohabitation with other types of development. Thus, in some tasks it will be better to take a cross-platform. In others, a native team will come in handy. Everything depends on the tasks and goals of the business. But there is no talk of displacing one technology with another" - Mikhail Morochko, iOS Developer at Cogniteq.
iOS developers mainly use two programming languages ​​to implement their projects: Objective-C and Swift. They differ only in novelty. The second one will be more famous and popular, since it can be used to develop the entire Apple infrastructure.

In Android development, languages ​​such as Kotlin and Java are used.

And for cross-platform applications, the young and rapidly gaining popularity Flutter framework is used, the working language for which is Dart.