Ultimate Guide For Mastering on Mobile App Maintenance Service and Plans

Nowadays, running and growing a business demands launching a user-centric app to expand its global reach. However, the real struggle starts after launching the business mobile app, which requires regular maintenance and support. This is when a strategic and effective mobile app maintenance plan is required to keep the application up-to-date and ensure its flawless performance. If you are also an entrepreneur looking for proper information about mobile app maintenance plans, this blog is for you. The blog explains everything about mobile app maintenance components, cost, process, benefits, etc. Let us read ahead to explore more.

Key Statics about Mobile App Maintenance

• According to Gartner, 85% of customer interactions will be technology-based.
• 72% of users uninstall the app if the performance is poor.
• There are about 3.55 million apps in Google Play and 1.64 million in the Apple App Store, which shows fierce competition.
• In 2020, Apple rejected around $1 million worth of apps for having unregistered features and not complying with privacy regulations.

What is Mobile App Maintenance?

Mobile app maintenance refers to regularly updating, debugging, and optimizing a mobile application after its initial launch. Regular maintenance and support services ensure the application remains functional and performs smoothly. The sole purpose of the maintenance plans is to meet user expectations by running the application intuitively across various operating systems.

Key Components of a Maintenance Plan

The comprehensive mobile app maintenance plan includes the following components. Have a look at them!

1. Bug Fixes

Bugs can crash an application and impact its performance, frustrating users and restricting them from using the app again. Therefore, testers use tools like Bugsnag or Crashlytics to detect app bugs and fix them in the code using an IDE( Integrated Development Environment), such as Android Studio or Xcode.

2. Security Patches

Negligence to the app's security can result in losing confidential and sensitive client information, negatively impacting the business's reputation. Therefore, the security team scans the app’s risks using tools like OWASP ZAP or Snyk. They also encrypt sensitive data and test for compliance with standards like GDPR or CCPA. This helps build users' trust and increase the app’s download rate.

3. Re-design UX/ UI Design

An app's UI/UX design is the first thing the user interacts with, building the business's image. A visually appealing interface grabs user attention, whereas if the app has a poor interface, it can build a negative perspective of your business. Therefore, developers have redesigned layouts and interfaces to avoid these issues and keep the app fresh. They use tools like Figma and Adobe XD to create strong prototypes and implement those designs using frameworks like SwiftUI. Hence, this creates a modern look, which increases user engagement.

4. License Renewals

Apps usually rely on paid services with timely licenses, such as mapping tools( Google Maps API) and payment systems( Stripe). Expired licenses can cause features to stop working and frustrate users. Therefore, keeping track of when these licenses expire and renewing them is crucial to avoid disruptions.

5. Backup and Recovery

Backup and recovery are other crucial components of a mobile application maintenance plan. It acts as a safety net, protecting data loss and ensuring continued operations even in unexpected disruptions like hardware failure, cyberattacks, etc. In this process, duplicate copies of the app's data are saved regularly using cloud services like AWS3 or Google Cloud Storage. These tools save data when the system crashes, ensuring quick recovery from failures.

6. Feature Addition

In this ever-changing market trend and customer demand, adding new features to the application to enhance users' interests is essential. Developers collect clients' feedback and analyze it to plan new features, such as new payment options or booking options. They build features using frameworks like Kotline, Django, or Node.js. Adding new features enhances user engagement, better retention, and higher downloads.

7. Operating System Testing

The operating system is the foundation of all tasks, and its regular maintenance is crucial to fixing security vulnerabilities and updating the device to improve overall app performance. To ensure the app works well with the latest Android and iOS updates, developers test it on simulators or real devices using tools like BrowserStack or Appium. Later, they fix the issues they find and prevent the app from crashing because of older updates.

8. Performance Monitoring

Users usually uninstall apps with low performance, which impacts the download rate of your app across multiple platforms. One crucial step in mobile app optimization is continuous performance monitoring. This involves checking the app's speed, responsiveness, scalability, and integrated features to ensure it runs smoothly with minimal loading speed, enhancing user experience.

Importance of Mobile Application Maintenance

Below are the compelling business benefits of mobile application maintenance. Let us give it a look!

1. Enhance User Experience

Believe it or not, there is no magical formula for driving your business app's success. However, user experience (UX) is the only way to expand your app and business reach, so delivering a superior UX is essential. Smoother navigation, minimal loading speed, and precise icon placement are a few factors that enhance UX. An excellent UX attracts more users and leads to increased overall revenue.

2. Adapt to Market Changes

The business world is competitive, and keeping your business app updated with user preferences and the latest trends is crucial to stay ahead. Integrating advanced features, new technologies, and modeling interfaces helps keep the app relevant and engaging to users in the rapidly evolving market.

3. Boost ROI

Addressing bugs occasionally and upgrading the app's functionalities opens new opportunities to attract users. It reduces the regular cost of fixes over a more extended period and enhances user experience, which increases the app download rate, ultimately boosting ROI.

4. Security Assurance

With advancing technology, security threads are also increasing. Therefore, regular maintenance and updates are necessary to protect the application against vulnerabilities and breaches. However, the mobile app maintenance company’s testers involve specific security measures to protect sensitive user data. It ensures the application complies with platform-specific privacy policies and local regulations like GDPR or CCPA.

Various Types of Mobile App Maintenance

The following are the various types of mobile application maintenance plans.

1. Corrective Maintenance

This mobile app maintenance fixes bugs, errors, and glitches while completing the app development cycle for smoother functioning and performance.

2. Preventive Maintenance:

Preventive iOS or Android app maintenance plans involve anticipating and mitigating potential issues before they become problems. This helps solve potential issues in advance and minimize any impact on the user's end

3. Adaptive Maintenance

In adaptive maintenance, the team constantly monitors and updates the application's performance. They modify software and hardware to ensure the application stays relevant while remaining compatible with new OS updates, devices, or third-party API integration.

4. Perfective Maintenance

This type of app maintenance is based on the user's experience. It may involve reducing loading speed and size or enhancing functionality to keep users engaged.

5. Emergency Maintenance

This plan is designed to resolve any unexpected and unwanted application errors. The testing team resolves these emergency issues and provides quick fixes for a seamless user experience.

Key Factors That Affect Mobile App Maintenance Cost

The exact cost of mobile application maintenance depends on the factors mentioned below. However, a leading mobile app maintenance company can provide a detailed breakdown after examining the app's development and future upgrade requirements.

1. App Complexity

Usually, complex mobile apps include advanced functionalities and features. Hence, they require more frequent upgrades, ultimately increasing their maintenance cost. However, a simple app doesn't have many integrations and features and requires less maintenance costs.

2. App Type

The platform on which app maintenance activities are performed also determines the costs. Because developers must follow regulations on each platform, cross-platform maintenance costs differ from iOS and Android app costs.

3. Third-party Integrations

If developers have included third-party solutions in your mobile app during its development cycle, its maintenance will cost additional money.

4. Technology Stack

Choosing a robust and advanced technology stack during the mobile app development cycle also requires frequent updates and code changes, which increase the cost of mobile app maintenance.

5. Hosting

Hosting is an essential component of a mobile application maintenance plan. It directly relates to the cost of managing and storing an app's data on servers. The more data an app can store, the more users it will have, increasing the hosting cost.

6. Bug Fixing

A business mobile app must undergo regular updates and bug fixes to stay ahead of competitors and engage users. However, the cost of correcting errors and adding new features depends on several bugs, the time required to repair them, coding complexities, etc., which defines its maintenance cost.

7. Customer Support

Customer support is essential for staying connected with users and understanding their needs. With the advancement of technology, customer support is also evolving, particularly with AI chatbots. However, these technologies require regular maintenance and support to ensure they function effectively for users, increasing mobile app maintenance costs.

8. Developer’s Expertise

Hiring developers of a top-notch mobile app development company is crucial to ensuring robust security and functionality. Whether you're looking for a one-time maintenance service model or want maintenance services for a long-dedicated application, each has its charges, but the results are worth it.

9. Cost Estimation Models

The next factor that affects the mobile application maintenance cost is whether the services are billed hourly, monthly, or as fixed plans,

Steps for the Mobile App Maintenance Process

Below are the step-by-step procedures for the mobile app maintenance company team follows.

1. Defect Identification

First, developers use tools like Crashlytics or user feedback to spot bugs or issues in the app. These defects might include app crashes, slow performance, or features that don't work as expected. Early detection is key to ensuring users don’t experience disruptions.

2. Detailed Analysis

Once a defect is identified, developers analyze it thoroughly to understand the root cause. They review error logs, debug code, and simulate user scenarios to pinpoint where things went wrong. This step ensures the problem is fixed correctly.

3. Resolve Issues or Update

Developers fix bugs by updating the code, repairing broken features, or improving app performance. Updates may also involve upgrading tools or libraries. After testing, the new version is prepared for release to users.

4. Ask for the Client’s Feedback

After resolving issues or updating the app, developers share the changes with the client or stakeholders. They collect feedback to ensure the fixes meet expectations and address any further improvements needed.

5. Performance Monitoring

Now, the team keeps a close eye on the app’s performance using tools like New Relic to track its speed, loading time, errors, and bugs to run smoothly across all platforms.

6. Delivery

At last, the team delivers the updated application on Google Play or Apple App Stores. They also ensure the complete app is launched accurately and inform users about newly added features and functionalities.

Security Strategies Developers Follow While Mobile App Maintenance Plan

1. Install Necessary SSL Certificates

SSL certificates encrypt data between users and servers, preventing hackers from intercepting sensitive information like passwords or payment details. Developers ensure all app communication, primarily through APIs, is protected using SSL to maintain user trust and comply with security standards.

2. Prioritize Mobile Device Encryption

The primary purpose of mobile device encryption is to convert the data into readable form to protect it from unauthorized access. Therefore, developers priortize mobile device encryption to protect the sensitive user data saved in the device. They ensure the information remains safe and secure without proper authentication, even if the device is stolen.

Why Select Suffescom for Mobile Application Maintenance Services?

Choose Suffescom, a top-notch mobile app maintenance company with 13+ years of industrial experience. We have skilled developers, designers, and testers who are professionals in their fields to provide robust web and mobile app development solutions. Our dedicated team prioritizes security, so sign a 100% secure NDA to bring credibility. Contact us today and watch your business app expand in the competitive market.

FAQs Related to the Mobile App Maintenance Plan

How Much Does Mobile App Maintenance Plans Cost?

The costs of a mobile app maintenance plan depend on various factors, including the app's type, hosting, tech stack, and features.

Why is Regular Mobile App Maintenance Crucial?

Regular mobile app maintenance is crucial for staying ahead of the competition. It enhances users' experiences, expands business reach, and boosts ROI.

How does regular mobile app maintenance benefit businesses in the long run?

Below are the business benefits of regular mobile app maintenance.

• Robust security
• Competitive Advantage
• Boost Brand Awareness
• Excellent user experience.

What are the different types of Mobile app maintenance services?

Following the types of mobile application maintenance plans.

• Preventive maintenance
• Corrective maintenance
• Adaptive maintenance
• Emergency maintenance
• Perfective maintenance

• mobile app development cost
• mobile app development