Your business has been growing steadily. It’s good to know that your customers trust you to provide goods and services in a reliable and timely manner.
And it’s been growing so much lately that you’re ready to develop your mobile app. It’s time that your recurring customers should be able to reach your business with just the touch of a button.
But this can have its problems come with it. For starters, you need backend development you can trust with your new project.
What is that exactly? And why is it so important?
Read on to learn everything you need to know about backend development for mobile apps.
What Is Mobile App Backend Development?
Imagine going into a restaurant. You sit down, and a waiter comes over to take your order. A little while later, they bring out your food for you to enjoy.
But what you don’t see are the chefs and dishwashers in the kitchen. You don’t see the people preparing your meals and keeping everything clean for your safety.
An app’s front-end development is everything you see when you open the app. This allows you to interact and communicate with any mobile app that you use.
Think of this as the part of the restaurant that you see when you go out to eat. The frontend development of an app is the waiter that takes your order and then brings you your food.
And behind the scenes, the app’s backend development communicates with the front end to bring you the requested information.
The internet is a large archive of documents. This archive is far too large to fit into any single personal device. Instead, the information is stored on servers that devices can request to see at any time.
When your waiter goes back into the kitchen, they give your order to the chef. The chef prepares your meal and gives it to your waiter to give to you. So the chef is the backend giving the frontend of the app the information to show you.
In other words, the backend development of an app takes care of everything that happens inside the server. It is everything that you don’t see when you open a mobile app.
What Backend Technology Covers
It’s easy to say that the backend development is everything the eye doesn’t see happening on your screen. But even saying that the backend is everything happening inside the server isn’t quite accurate.
The front end communicates with the back end. The backend then interacts with the server to get the information you’re looking for. The backend then takes that and hands it to the frontend to display on your screen.
But what exactly does that all entail? These three things are the main items that backend technology is going to focus on.
Database
The first thing that back-end development will do for your mobile app maintains the app’s database.
Think about the mobile app for a store. When you open the app, the first items you will usually see are the store’s current featured items. These items might be new to the store, or they might be on sale.
Then there are usually options to browse by categories such as home goods and clothes. There’s usually even a search bar for those who already know exactly what they’re looking for.
The store’s mobile app is essentially a database for everything that it sells. This database is stored inside the webserver hosting the app. It knows what the store sells, how many items it has in stock, and how much everything in the store costs.
All the front end has to do is let the server (the backend) know which items you’re looking to purchase from the store. The backend can then tell the front how much that will cost. At the same time, it’s also telling the store which items to send you.
If it weren’t for the backend keeping up with the database, servers would have no idea what items you were trying to buy. They would have no idea which movies or songs you were trying to stream.
The Architecture of the App
When you log in to streaming services, you might notice that some content is only available to people who have a higher-cost account. You might also notice that certain titles are only available to stream in certain regions.
The app knows which titles are available to you by where your account is from. You provided this information when you created your account. Streaming services often use multiple servers that are organized by region.
When you open the app, the backend can see that information and send your requests to that particular server. Then it finds the title that you want to stream and sends it to the front-end to play for you.
You might also notice that music streaming apps allow you to organize your music library into groups called playlists. You can then tell the app to play these sets of music at random.
This is all part of the architecture of the app. It’s the way the app is designed for certain functions.
In the music streaming example, the front end may display which songs are in the playlist and which one is currently playing. The backend, however, is what selects the next song at random.
Scripting
The scripting of the app refers to the code running the app in the background. Think about playing a video game for a moment as you move through the game; the scenery ahead of you loads and gets more clear as you approach it.
The game has a frame for every position and angles your camera might be facing at any time. Each location loads as you move through them. This is why many video games have loading screens.
All of these frames are part of the game’s “script.” Even a game without online functions needs these scripts to know what visuals to load. It’s the reason that people can look into a game’s code and show its flaws in funny videos online.
And online mobile games need to be loading data from the server constantly. It becomes a dance between the backend pulling information from the server and giving it to the front-end. And they have to be able to do this quickly, or the game will run slow and skip frames in a phenomenon known as lag.
This is no different for any other mobile app, either. Every streaming service and shopping app needs to quickly meet the many requests hitting their servers at any time.
Apps That Don’t Need Backend Framework
Several apps don’t need or even have a backend framework. These apps are not connected to the internet and generally have very simple functions. These are good examples of apps that don’t need backend development.
Compass and Level
The compass app comes installed on most smartphones and tablets. All it needs to do is identify the magnetic north and point to it. This is how analog compasses work as well.
The phone itself has hardware that does the identification for it. All the screen needs to do is display the information. This doesn’t require a connection to a web server.
The level function in the same app works much the same way. It uses gravity sensors installed in the phone to know the orientation of the phone. Using this information, the app can display which way a picture frame is leaning, for example.
Both of these functions rely on hardware sensors inside your phone. They do not use internet connections to display information. Therefore, they don’t need a web server to host them. If there’s no webserver, then what you see is what you get.
That means there is no backend work needed for this app.
Notes
Most smartphones also come with a note app that is handy for people who tend to forget things. It allows you to store written information you want to remember later or even keep a diary on your phone. And it does this without ever using an internet connection.
The information that’s written in the notes app is stored on the phone itself. Once again, what you see is what you get. The only caveat is that this means that you can only access these notes on one device.
Measure
The measure app uses your phone’s camera to estimate the distance between one point and another. This is simple camerawork and mathematics. There is no need for an internet connection to complete this function.
This means that the phone itself has the tools to complete these requests for information. It doesn’t need any backend work to tell you a simple distance between two points.
Again, all of these apps usually come with the phone and provide simple functions. This is why the phone itself can handle these tasks without a backend framework.
How to Choose the Best One for Your Project
So how do you choose the right company for mobile backend development? You need people behind you that understand your needs. They need to be professional and accommodating.
And they also need to have the following qualities as a company.
Customizable
You should be looking for a company that understands what makes your company unique. Your mobile app is going to be your company’s face, after all. It’s going to be the main thing shoppers see when they’re buying from their phones.
So you should be able to make your mobile app as unique as your company. It should reflect the strengths and values of the business. Therefore, your backend development should be customizable.
Speed
If your app is loading slowly, then this can lead to frustrated customers. These customers are more likely to give up and buy from a different business. So every second matters when it comes to your business’s mobile app.
The company you choose to run your mobile app backend should be helping you succeed. If it’s losing customers for you instead, then it isn’t doing its job right. So the company you choose to run your mobile app backend should promise high loading speeds for your customers.
Scalability
Your mobile app is going to have new needs as your business grows. More customers mean more requests coming in at once. Your backend development needs to be able to keep up with this demand as it increases.
This is why the company you trust with the backend framework needs to offer scalability. As your business grows, the capabilities of the mobile app should grow too.
This is essential to keeping your app from crashing or running slowly. These problems can cost you a lot of customers. A good backend developer will understand this and advise you when it’s time to expand.
Reliability
Finally, the most important thing you can check a mobile backend developer for is reliability. They should be providing you with the services you asked for on time. They should be able to promise minimal to no bugs when your app goes live.
This is important because you need to deliver services to your customers when you say you will. If your app makes that unreliable, then you become a sitting duck.
So before you let your app go live, make sure that your backend developers have done everything they said they would on time.
Get Your Mobile App Development Started Today
Strong backend development is going to be the key to making a great mobile app for your business. All you need to do now is hire the right company for the job.
That’s why you should trust Nizek. Our experts are ready and willing to help you with all of your mobile app needs. We even promise high speeds and reliability on all of our work.
Go ahead and contact us today and see how we can help you build a great mobile app.
