Developing a mobile app is one of the best things that you can do to promote your business.
Numerous studies have shown that having a mobile app is important for businesses that want to compete in this day and age. It is the ultimate way to get access to a whole new market. More importantly, learning how to make an app is now much easier than ever before. You really don’t need to learn as much code or go through extensive courses before you are able to create your own app.
Instead, there are a number of different ways by which you can create an app. For those who want to learn how to make an app, here are five different ways to keep in mind.
1. Write the Native Code for it
Known to many as the basic way for creating an app, all you have to do is write the native code for the device that you are creating the app for. For instance, if you are developing an app for the iOS platform, you will want to write the code in Swift, which is the default programming language for Apple.
On the other hand, most apps for Android are coded in Java or Kotlin, so you can write apps in those. However, the limitation with this method is that you will have to maintain two separate codebases, which can be a problem for smaller businesses.
2. Using React Native
Another excellent option is to make use of React Native. It gives users the option of writing JavaScript code while using fully native widgets. The platform still makes use of JavaScript runtime libraries, but it doesn’t make use of WebViews. More importantly, the presentation is not HTML either.
React Native is community-driven, and also features a live reload option. It offers fantastic performance for mobile environments, and has a very modular architecture that closely resembles React. React Native is much more intuitive when compared with other hybrid apps. However, it still faces quite a few performance related problems because of its reliance on JavaScript’s bridging.
If you don’t know how to make an app yourself, you can always schedule a demo of our mobile app service that is exclusively targeted toward car dealers.
3. WebViews
One of the simplest ways to create mobile apps was to create hybrid apps. They were essentially touch-navigable web pages that were presented in the app container. The framework obviously limits user experience and makes use of the JavaScript bridging to connect with native services. It also has a negative impact on performance and is obviously not as intuitive as you might think. React Native is actually considered an upgrade over this.
4. Using Flutter
Another excellent option to use is Flutter. The development style offered by Flutter is quite reactive, very similar to React Native, but the reason why Flutter is more popular among developers is because Flutter gets rid of the runtime JavaScript libraries altogether. Instead, it compiles the code natively for use on different platforms.
This leads to a litany of advantages, starting from faster app performance and quicker loading times as well. As a car dealer, you will want to make sure that you create a mobile app that is responsive and loads up quickly. Obviously, you will have plenty of products on your app as well, so if the loading times are not decent enough, most users are simply not going to want to stay on the app for a prolonged period of time.
5. Using Progressive Web Apps
One of the best things that you can do as a car dealer is to get an application made using progressive web apps, which many may consider the future. Web APIs now allow for greater interaction between devices and their corresponding web pages, which means that the pages can be cached, thus allowing users to work offline as well.
What’s our take?
Hiring a developer can be costly and you will always depend on them for further updates. Also, learning the programming language yourself has its benefits but there will be a learning curve that might be too long and impractical.
If you don’t know how to make an app yourself, you can always us turn-key services like DealeApp vantage. Schedule a demo of our mobile app service that is exclusively targeted toward car dealers. A demo will help you better understand the capabilities of the service and allow you to explore the benefits and see how fast you can bring your dealer app to market.
Automobile companies often face a litany of challenges as they continue to grow. Car dealerships have to come up with unique and interesting ways to separate themselves from the pack. As a car dealership owner or service manager, it is your responsibility to make sure that you are able to create a product that resonates with your customers.
Simple features such as allowing customers to set up dates for servicing or for tracking their application progress and updating inventory regularly are essential and you need to incorporate those. Once you are able to do that, your app’s ratings are automatically going to improve.