How an app is developed, step by step

1. What are the phases of app development?

There are six, and each one ends with something your business can see and review:

• What it has to do.: Who the app is for, what it solves and what goes into the first version.
• Screen design.: How it looks and how it is used, screen by screen, with your brand.
• Development.: The features, the data and the connections with your company’s systems.
• Testing.: On real phones, iPhone and Android, before any customer sees it.
• Publishing.: In the iPhone and Android stores, under your company’s name.
• Maintenance.: Updates for new phone versions, bug fixes and improvements.

The order matters: each phase builds on what was decided in the one before. Changing a screen while it is still a design is quick; changing it once it has been built means redoing work.

2. What is decided before starting?

Before designing anything, you need to know what the app has to achieve. In the first meeting, by video call, by phone or in person when the project calls for it, we go through:

• Who it is for: your customers, your team or both.
• What they need to do with it: book, order, look things up, pay or get notifications.
• Whether it launches on iPhone, on Android or on both from the start.
• Which phone features it needs: notifications, camera, location, offline use or sign-in with face or fingerprint.
• What it has to connect to: your website, your management software or your online shop.
• What goes into the first version and what can wait for the next one.

With that we prepare the quote, which you receive in writing and split into phases, with what is delivered in each one.

What helps most at this stage is separating the essentials from the nice-to-haves. A first version with the essentials reaches your customers sooner, and they are the ones who tell you what is missing.

3. How are an app’s screens designed?

Design decides how the app looks and, above all, how it is used: how many steps it takes to book or pay, where each button sits and what someone finds when they open it for the first time.

It is designed screen by screen, with your brand’s colours, typeface and logo. The main journeys come first, then each screen with its real content: placeholder text hides problems that the real text brings to light.

Your business provides the brand and the content, such as copy, photos, the menu or the catalogue. The result is the complete design of the app, which is built afterwards.

4. What happens during development?

What the design draws gets built: the screens, the features your customers use and the data the app stores and keeps in sync.

• The app’s features.: User accounts, bookings, orders or payments, depending on what was decided.
• The phone’s features.: Notifications that arrive even when the app is closed, offline use, camera, location and sign-in with face or fingerprint.
• The connections.: The app talks to your website, your management software or your online shop, so nobody has to copy data by hand.
• The admin panel.: If your team needs to publish content or see the app’s data.

The work moves through the phases of the quote, and in each one you know what is delivered. Throughout the project you work directly with the studio.

5. How is an app tested before launch?

On real phones, iPhone and Android, not just on a computer. A real phone shows what a simulation hides: text that cannot be read in sunlight, a button that sits under your thumb or a notification that never arrives.

• That every journey works from start to finish: signing up, booking, paying.
• That the app keeps working with little or no signal, if it needs to.
• That notifications arrive when they should.
• That it looks right on screens of different sizes.

It is worth having your team use it for a few days before launch too: it is the most direct way to check that it does what was decided at the start.

6. How is an app published in the stores?

We publish it in the iPhone and Android stores under your company’s name. Each store requires its own developer account, which is also in your company’s name.

Each store reviews the app before publishing it. That is why its store listing, with the name, description and screenshots, is prepared with the same care as the app itself.

It is the same path followed by the more than 20 apps we have built for clients that are in production today. You can see how we work on the mobile app development page.

7. How long does it take to develop an app?

A first version, in a few months, depending on the scope. The plan in the quote sets what is delivered in each phase, so you know from the start when each part arrives.

What stretches a project most is rarely the development itself, but changing decisions halfway through. That is why the first phase spends time deciding carefully what goes into the first version.

8. What happens after the app is published?

An app is not finished the day it reaches the stores. New versions of iPhone and Android come out every year, and the app has to keep working on them. Maintenance covers those updates, bug fixes and the improvements you ask for.

Once the app is in your customers’ hands, their feedback and requests start coming in too. That is where the improvements for the next version come from.

9. Who owns the app?

Your company, once the project has been paid for. It is published under your name in the stores from day one.

10. How much does it cost to develop an app?

There is no single figure: the price depends on what the app has to do. What moves it most is the number of screens and types of user, whether it launches on iPhone and Android, the phone features it uses, the connections with your systems and whether it needs an admin panel.

We explain it in depth in the guide on how much an app costs.

If you already have the idea, tell us about your app. We reply within 24 hours.