Series: From idea to app - Maintain and Evolve 6/6
Once your app is in production (a technical term to say that the app is being used by real users in the real world) you can rarely let it be forever. It is like your future house, you can just build it, live in it, and forget about it.. With time things will get old and most probably break. You will need to maintain them to prevent to break or you will probably wish to upgrade your house (new room, new kitchen, etc). The same applies to apps. As in the house example, there are two different aspects to consider: maintenance and evolution.
The maintenance case is about maintaining the infrastructure and comply with changes in third party services in use in your app. For example, the server hosting your app or backend should be constantly updated to avoid security problems. Or Apple establishes new terms to distribute your app in the App store and you might need to change your app. For example, you might also be using an external service for your app operations and it literally disappears. And so on.
The evolution is about updating your app with new features or perform changes to attract more users. In this case you simply repeat the execution of this app life cycle (going through all the steps but usually much faster than the first version because by following the cycle the first time you have a strong base already).
The maintenance case is about maintaining the infrastructure and comply with changes in third party services in use in your app. For example, the server hosting your app or backend should be constantly updated to avoid security problems. Or Apple establishes new terms to distribute your app in the App store and you might need to change your app. For example, you might also be using an external service for your app operations and it literally disappears. And so on.
The evolution is about updating your app with new features or perform changes to attract more users. In this case you simply repeat the execution of this app life cycle (going through all the steps but usually much faster than the first version because by following the cycle the first time you have a strong base already).
Development cycle - Maintain and Evolve
At MobileThinking we can help you with both, maintenance and of course evolution using this lifecycle familiar to you if you started your adventure with us or read this document until here.
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