Top 10 Tips For Developing Enterprise Mobile Apps

I wrote this post, the full version of which is over at extensionEngine.

Every year since 2005 has been declared (in advance) the “year of enterprise mobile” however not until 2010 was that prediction correct.  And the catalyst for that was the introduction of the Apple iPad (and subsequently similarly featured tablets on other OS’s) which is now being tested or deployed by 65% of the Fortune 500.  And this isn’t just theoretical for us.  extensionEngine has been developing mobile applications since the firm was founded in 2000 and in the past year we have seen explosive growth, particularly in iOS and for the iPad (but also to a lesser degree for Android devices and RIM). So we thought we’d share our top 10 tips on developing mobile applications for the enterprise:

playbook_ipad

10. Make sure you really need it.  First of all, make sure the app doesn’t already exist!  After that, check to see if an app is the right way to do it.  For the vast majority of use cases, it’s easier, cheaper and faster to develop an HTML 5 version of the current online website specifically for mobile.  You only need a native app if you require access to device specific controls or inputs; for example GPS location data, accelerometer data, multi-touch screen, camera, working offline, etc.  If you’re just pushing reports to your sales force in the field, you can do that with a HTML 5 site.  But if you want to show a map of your sales rep’s customer accounts within a few miles of her current location filtered for those that are large but haven’t had a recent touch and make the experience interactive…you’re going to want to do that in a native app.

Read the rest of the post here.