App Developers for Android

As with any service industry, you can imagine that there is a broad spectrum of app developers for hire. Their abilities span from individuals, hobbyists and students who offer one piece of the solution (development only) and one platform (Android only) to trusted professional full service app development teams like ArcTouch, who can handle everything from idea to deployment (app strategy, user interface design, development and testing, deployment in the app store, and follow on maintenance) across all the smartphone and tablet platforms (iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone and HTML5 web apps).

How To Find The Best App Developers for Android

Do any Internet search for “best app developers for Android” or “hire best Android app developers” or “find top Android app developers” and you’ll find hundreds of search results and dozens of “paid advertisements” for application developers and app software programmers. You can also search on craigslist where you’ll find individuals, students and hobbyists, or you can post projects onto oDesk or eLance to find offshore firms who offer cut rate per hour prices. These offshore firms seem too good to be true, but usually you’ll find that you need two or three times the number of people to get the project completed (there go the cost savings) and will also require you to create explicit directions for the firm to follow and require you to be in constant communication with them (often via Skype or equivalent at night) or expect a real shortfall between what you wanted in your app and what you get.

What You Should Know When Hiring An Android App Developer

You will encounter a wide variety of app development rates and prices points during your investigation. When hiring an app developer, don’t be tempted by price alone – it’s become clear that app development is one area where you do get what you pay for.

There are many “grey areas” where a low estimate raises flags and you should ask questions like these:

Company

Is it a real company or a bunch individuals and freelancers working together?
How many smartphone apps have they done? Tablet apps? Hybrid apps? Web apps?
What platforms do they have expertise in? ArcTouch knows iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry, webOS, Windows Phone and HTML5 web apps.
Can they do the design work, the backend services work?
Do they handle deployment and on-going maintenance?
What is their business model? Do they sell apps? Watch out for conflicts of interest!
What is the deliverable? Is source code included? Who owns it? Clarity of ownership is key.

Customers

How many of their clients are “recognizable” – Fortune 500, name brands, leading media companies?
Can they provide references to these recognizable clients?
How many of their apps have reached the #1 spot or over 1M downloads?
Do they know “insiders” at Apple, Google, RIM, HP and Microsoft to help get your app “noticed”?
Do they have a portfolio of recognizable showcase apps?

Team

What’s the average experience of their engineers? Mobile experience? Back-end development experience?
Are they direct employees or are they free-lancers?
Where are they located? Can the engineers actually work on-site at your location, side-by-side with your team?
Do you have a dedicated product manager who manages the process, or do you have to manage it via Skype and email, at 12 midnight?

Process

How often will you get status updates?
What is the project tracking site/system you use to track documentation?
How often will get actual test apps to try out on your device? Can you download them from a site to install?
How often can you have in person meetings with your team?
Who handles the creative work?

Testing

Who does QA (quality assurance)?
Do they test on actual devices?
Do they do test-driven development?
Do they do automated testing?
Do they use a continuous build server?

The answers to these questions will vary considerably from vendor to vendor, and some may not even be able to answer them.

We’ll answer any question from the list above. Give us a call at 415-944-2000 or email us.

We provide full transparency in our company, our processes, our estimates, and our development and testing methods. You’ll have a dedicated product manager who handles the whole app development process for you. When you hire ArcTouch to be your Android app developers, we sweat the details so you don’t have to. Your app is delivered exactly as you want it.

App Developers for Android