9 tools and tips that will improve your mobile app performance

With mobile apps entering the market at an alarming rate, there is no doubt that you seriously need to reconsider your strategies if you want people to download your apps and, thereby, generate revenue. And if your app’s ranking is very low, then you need to revamp all the present strategies and introduce new and workable ones.

The two main significant counter-intuitive challenges faced by mobile app developers are (1) avoiding performance bottlenecks and (2) optimizing mobile applications. While mobile developers have less trouble providing exemplary performance for stationary devices, they still have to work hard to provide the same level of service through mobile devices.

This is because internet connectivity is reliable across desktops but is still spotty over mobile devices. This is why developers are tasked with creating mobile apps that can match the reliability and speed of stationary devices.

Tips to improve your mobile app performance

1. Choosing between iOS or Android

Since it is evident that both iOS and Android hold giant market shares in the app development arena, it would be wise to concentrate on one of those to gain a market entry. Most developers create specific apps for these two platforms or choose to develop hybrid apps.

But it would be advisable to concentrate on a single platform in the initial stages. Each is embedded with its own sets of challenges and perks, and it is your individual requirement that should be taken into account.

2. Using testing tools

There are a number of automated testing tools for both Android and iOS versions and subversions. Mobile developers can test and evaluate the performance of their tools to check for quality.

Testing is a crucial phase in app development. Luckily, a plethora of tools and online resources would help in automated testing for UI in mobile apps and code libraries. These tools would also test for fluid User Interface and User Experience (UI and UX) and responsiveness of your app

3. Follow the five-step process while optimizing the mobile app

To ensure the success of your optimization efforts, you need to test your app through a five-step process. This is done not just to understand what works but also to understand what works best.

The five-step process is split, test, measure, choose and deploy. Users are generally very intolerant when they see unexpected changes in their mobile app. So, some forms of testing can be confined to new users only or perhaps to the new version of your app.

4. Pre-fetched content plan

There is more significant latency while delivering content for wired networks than wireless networks. So, it is natural that there will be a delay in delivering content as there is likely to be a speed difference. Unfortunately, users expect their wireless networks to work as seamlessly as wired networks.

This is why incorporating a pre-fetched content plan would be a preferred choice. Through Content Delivery Network or CDN, people can start downloading the content and view it after a couple of seconds. The rest of the content would then be loaded in chunks, depending on network speed. This becomes applicable for images, CSS, small files, and scripts.

5. Having robust CDN services

As mobile apps have to compete with standard mobile websites, it is essential to maintain the speed and availability to deliver user engagement within your mobile app. It would be good to have an adaptive image compression strategy as part of your CDN services.

In adaptive image compression, the JPEG images are all compressed depending on networking connectivity to help pages load faster. It also means identifying the fastest and most reliable path to the origin so content can be delivered quickly.

6. Application Performance Monitoring System

It would be ideal to have an APM or Application Monitoring System in place to help with the monitoring and management of your app.

It goes deeper to analyze performance problems by concentrating on two main aspects — analyzing the user experience (checking the load time, for instance) and measuring computational resources (resources utilized by an app). Companies like App Dynamics, New Relic, and HockeyApp provide APM tools.

7. Improve your app’s reach with Zapier integration

Here is a better option for coding valuable features on your app from scratch. You can make use of Zapier integration and bolster your app offerings by making use of third-party integration tools. Zapier utilizes “Trigger” and “Action” scenarios to help you collaborate on code and track your app simultaneously.

For example, Github pairs with Slack, and your team receives automatic notification whenever the project repository updates. Any change that happens in Github can be considered a “Trigger,” and an “Action” could come in the form of a notification/message. Zap delivers a strategic connection between apps; when “an event” happens, a “result” follows.

Tools to improve your mobile app performance

Bugs and slow performance are probably the two main terrors that hinder the functionality of web apps. This is why it is essential to test your apps before they appear in the stores. When you can detect performance problems, you can rectify what’s causing them and release it for final.

Here are some tools that would help you detect your app’s problems:

8. Xamarin.UITest

Xamarin.UITest is based on Calabash, and it would help test your mobile app across all platforms, including native and hybrid, and for both iOS and Android apps, even those apps not made with the Xamarin framework.

The reason why Xamarin.UI test deserves a special mention here is because it allows you to scale your testing efforts by incorporating it into Xamarin Test Cloud and test your app across more than a thousand real, non-jailbroken iOS and Android devices.

9. Monkop

Monkop is a favorite tool among developers as it is pretty accurate in testing Android apps. It tests your app on a number of parameters, including app performance, functionality across multiple real devices, and of course, security.

Additionally, Monkop sends you a performance analysis of your app so you can check what went wrong, where, and why. It acts as a vital aid for checking resource consumption like render, data, transfer, memory, and response time.

There are more…

There are other testing Android tools like Robotic, MonkeyRunner, Ranorex, Appium, and UI Automator. If you are an iOS developer, then you can use TestFlight and TestFairy. Apps like HockeyApp and Ubertesters can be used for testing both iOS and Android.