How to Maintain an iOS App? Importance, Process & Tools

Do you have an iOS app and want to maintain it?

A malware infection can damage the device, which may further remove key layers of the built-in security. Without a regular update, the iOS app can become more vulnerable to security threats that can increase the risk of losing it. Thus, it is important to maintain it.

Well, are you scared about how to proceed with it?

Relax, we got your back. Here we will discuss the reasons behind maintaining an iOS app, a stepwise guide, essential tools required to maintain an app, the required cost to maintain it, and a lot more.

Let’s start this amazing journey with the guide to maintaining an iOS App, together.

Why Maintain an iOS App?

Are you still confused regarding “why maintain an iOS app?”

Here is the list related to the importance of app maintenance, let’s check it out.

1. Helps to Save Money

iOS app maintenance is an important process that assists in saving money rather than actually wasting it. Through app maintenance, you can catch bugs and errors even before they can make your app crash or can cost you a huge later.

It assists in reducing the mobile app downtime which can cost you more in terms of money. Thus, through relevant app maintenance, you can save money and brand reputation at the same time.

2. Improves App Security

One of the prominent issues faced in our current lives is related to cybercrimes. Losing user’s data not only results in falling prone to cyber threat but also results in losing a lot more users. It is essential to have a strict maintenance schedule that helps in keeping the app safe from multiple cybercrimes.

App maintenance is useful to remain compatible with the latest security technology with the trending versions of the software which ensures a smooth functioning of the app.

3. Provides Competitive Edge

iOS app maintenance can assist in enhancing the competitive edge of the brand by ensuring that your app remains up-to-date with the newest hardware and systems. It further assists in providing the users with the latest functions and features that may increase their overall engagement.

Adopting predictive app maintenance for iOS can help you fix major issues through the latest technologies which keeps your app within a competitive environment.

4. Enhances User Experience

The main motive of every app is to gather the user’s attention. Regular updates are a sign that you care for the customers and adopt measures to improve their experience with the app. It adds positive value to the brand and assists in providing expected results.

With continuous monitoring, performance evaluation, and updates, you can identify and fix bugs that will ultimately result in the smooth functioning of an app.

5. Complying with the Changing Regulations

With the government, the policies and regulations related to technology use often change. It is essential to go with the current changing regulations and procedures to sustain within the industry. Even the app store licenses need renewal and a subsequent check.

Hence, with iOS app maintenance, you can address such complicated barriers. It can help you increase awareness about the app trends and comply with the iOS regulations.

6. Provides Operating System Upgrades

The operating system keeps on upgrading its additional features and assists in closing any security breaches. Hence, iOS does require regular updates based on the current software. This helps the app to reduce and solve software performance issues.

Regular updates over iOS are essential to identify and adopt because they significantly optimize and maintain the app’s peak performance.

7. Helps to Add New Features

People are prone to changes and they seek to find new technologies that make their work more simple and easy to process. This can become one of the measure reasons that people keep on switching apps when they find a new technology or update.

When you provide a new update and feature to a significant app, it can increase the user’s retention rate. You can provide them a reason to be with the app by adding new advanced features to it.

8. Ensure Relevancy

People find the app authentic and relevant, only when it addresses their current needs. Thus, app maintenance helps in keeping up with the trend and is useful to remain relevant to the current practices.

Through routine app maintenance, you can keep complying with the relevant rules and guidance that help in maintaining relevancy as well as increasing user trust.

These were some of the common importance and reasons for why maintaining an iOS App.

Now, as you are very well aware of the reasons, let’s look forward to the steps for maintaining an iOS app.

Stepwise Guide to Maintaining an iOS App

iOS app maintenance can help you protect from all the vulnerabilities that can impact the overall user performance.

Here’s a stepwise guide to follow that can help you identify the right process to maintain an app.

 Step 1: Proceed with the Regular Updates

You can perform regular iOS app updates, which is an essential step to identify bugs and errors that can impact its overall performance.

Regular updates can assist in keeping up with the app security and is useful to save time and effort at a later date. It is effective to minimize the chances of any serious injury.

Timely identification of bugs and errors is a prominent way to address them on time before they can end up in an app crash.

Step 2: List –up Bugs and Errors

Now, you have got two options here, first either to address the bugs and errors as soon as they are found or to list them up for later updates.

Listing up the errors can take time to reduce them and finding appropriate reasons for their occurrence may become your second step towards iOS app maintenance.

On the other hand, addressing the bugs on time is essential in reducing downtime.

Step 3: Fixing Bugs

If you have listed all the bugs and errors, now it’s time to identify the reason behind their occurrence and to address them effectively.

This process is essential in optimizing app performance and retaining users in the long run. It is focused to keep the app smooth and to increase the overall health of iOS.

This is useful to keep the app competitive and to comply with specific industry regulations.

Step 4: Check-on Security

You should consider a check over mobile app security. It is one of the essential processes to develop the trust of the users with the brand.

Check on iOS app security will assist in updating its compatibility by identifying the security patches and any new vulnerability threats.

User’s trust and data is an important practice that can impact the overall performance of an app. Thus, by keeping up with the security check, you can reduce the chances of any cyber threat that may harm an iOS app in the long run.

Step 5: A Check Over User Interface

It is essential to check over a user interface for improving UI/UX design based on the users’ demand.

You should be aware of the modern and fresh design trends effective to attract and retain potential users.

This process is effective for optimizing the existing features, services, and functionalities based on the UI/UX design principles.

Step 6: A Check Over an Integration with Third Party

The next step is to check over the API. Your app should have a secure integration with the third party. This will help in increasing users’ trust as well as ensuring app dynamics.

Avoiding such updates can result in broken functionalities that results in compromise the user experience and may lead to data inconsistencies.

Therefore, you should comply with the regulations of third-party integration, which will successfully result in increasing an iOS app performance.

Step 7: Schedule App Maintenance

You can schedule an iOS app maintenance process for your next activity.

This will help you to decide which practices require a regular updates and the type of activities that can be performed within a week or month.

Scheduling app maintenance for your next update can help in defining the practices and updates that can be performed next to increase its overall performance.

Well, now you can go through the mentioned steps for implementing them in iOS app maintenance.

After the steps, the next question is “What are the tools essential to maintain an iOS app?”

Let’s check out them in the next section.

Essential Tools to Maintain an iOS App

Well, to maintain an iOS app, top app maintenance tools & techniques play a prominent role.

Let’s check out them here.

♦ Xcode

Xcode is one of the important Apple Integrated Development Environment (IDE) useful tool for iOS app development.

It is an essential tool that is used for debugging that helps in finding as well as fixing errors within the app’s code during maintenance.

This tool is useful for developers to set breakpoints within their code that can further be utilized to inspect any vulnerabilities within the app.

♦ AppCode

AppCode is among the smart integrated tools that support Swift, Objective-C/C++, and many other languages.

This tool can be useful in synchronizing and arranging all the changes after ensuring that all the things within the app are up-to-date.

AppCode is one of the specific procedures useful in listing all the errors that can be helpful in identifying the reasons behind their occurrence.

♦ TestFlight

TestFlight is one of the important tools for maintaining an iOS app and is best for its development as well as testing. It is an essential tool for refining the app before it becomes fit for the app store.

This tool is effective for uploading the app build as well as sending out the invitations to the testers.

It can be effective in downloading the app and is useful in recognizing bugs or errors that can cause harm to its overall performance.

♦ Firebase

Firebase is a tool for iOS app development that can be helpful in user authentication. It can be effective in storing data such as user information with the real-time database.

This tool can be effective in storing files such as photos and videos with cloud storage. During app maintenance, it can help to secure the data history of the users effectively for them to recover it.

It provides fast and secure hosting of the app helpful in performance checks as well as real-time tracking of user’s activity over the platform.

♦ Simulator

A simulator is an important tool for iOS app maintenance that can be used to test the app over a variety of devices as well as operating systems.

This is a testing tool that helps the developer to test the compatibility of an app.

It is useful in regression testing, by preventing unintended consequences, performance testing, and compatibility testing.

♦ Alamofire

Alamofire indirectly helps in app maintenance, by providing layers for app security, along with helping the developers to understand as well as modify the network code effectively.

It is crucial to offer features such as request serialization, error handling, and assisting in improving the overall performance of an app in the long run.

Through simplifying tasks including parameter encoding and making the network code simpler, it can enhance the app maintenance process.

Other than the above-given tools, you can hire mobile app developers, who can provide add-up assistance of maintenance.

Within the guide to maintaining an iOS app, now it’s time to know about its cost.

Let’s learn it all in the next section.

What’s the Cost to Maintain an iOS App?

Do you know that the cost of maintaining a mobile app is impacted by a certain number of factors?

Well, it’s true. The estimated cost to maintain an iOS app can be from $15,000 to $35,000 per annum. The factors that can impact this cost can be features, complexity, design of the app, and tech stack used in its development.

A highly complex iOS app may require more cost and vice-versa. Hence, you should be able to evaluate it according to the app’s requirements.

While maintaining an app, mistakes are common parameters. However, you should be aware of them all at once.

Well, app maintenance mistakes may impact the overall cost, performance, and process.

Check for Common mistakes to avoid in iOS app maintenance over the next section.

Common Mistakes to Avoid in iOS App Maintenance

Mobile app maintenance mistakes can affect the overall process and even the budget decided for it.

Then what should be its solution, and what are the top mistakes to avoid while maintaining an iOS app?

Relax, we will address it all in the following section.

► Avoiding Regular Updates

Avoiding it can result in your app in great trouble. The app can function slowly and can be prone to have lots of errors.

Solution

It is important for businesses to continuously maintain an iOS app. You should keep an eye on its regular functioning through proper monitoring and evaluation of its activity.

► Ignoring App Security

Are you avoiding the security of your app? Then this can cause in loss the potential users and they can even ignore trusting the app again.

Solution

Implementing robust security measures is the optimum solution here. You should opt for strong security measures that can increase the overall performance of an app.

► Lack of App Testing

Launching an app in a hurry is not a solution. You might damage the whole image of the brand or it can even impact the overall existence of an app.

Solution

Thus, reducing the app maintenance downtime is okay, but ignoring testing can create a blunder. You should be using effective and prompt mobile app testing tools by automating the app maintenance process.

► Overbuilding an App with Features

Adding features is an important task during app maintenance but not all the time. Overbuilding the app with too many features can result in losing or frustrating the users.

Solution

Thus, during app maintenance, you should note to add a set of features that plays a prominent role in addressing the user’s need. Here, you need to avoid additional features that cannot be optimized to their requirements.

► Ignoring User Feedback

Are you avoiding users’ feedback while maintaining an iOS app? Well, then you shouldn’t. Sometimes their feedback can increase the overall functionality of an app.

Solution

You should take time to evaluate the user’s feedback to identify the subsequent areas to improve the app. This will help to update the app accordingly which will optimize the complete performance.

► Poor Selection of Maintenance Tools

During app maintenance, poor selection of maintenance tools can result in ineffective results. It can result in poor app performance and will slow down the maintenance process.

Solution

Connecting with the right maintenance company can help here. They will assist you in identifying and implementing top maintenance tools relevant to your iOS app.

Considering the above most common mistakes in iOS App Maintenance, you should start the process.

Well, if you connect with a reputed maintenance service provider, your task will be simplified.

How Nimble AppGenie Can Help in Maintaining an iOS App?

Are you looking for a well-experienced iOS app maintenance company?

Well, you need not to worry.

Nimble AppGenie is the best App Maintenance Service Provider, who can assist you by providing assistance with the right tools and timely updates.

They have an expert panel who can perform this task for you. With the right tools, we can fix your iOS app bugs, update new features, and can facilitate it as per the current trend.

Conclusion

iOS app maintenance is important to save money, increase app security, provide a competitive edge, assist in adding new features, help comply with changing regulations, and increase user performance.

The right steps to proceed with the iOS app maintenance start from conducting regular updates, listing bugs and errors, fixing the errors, checking on security, and scheduling the next app maintenance activity.

Well, the cost can be impacted by different factors such as features, complexity, etc. With the right list of tools, you can adopt the process efficiently. These tools may comprise Firebase, TestFlight, Simulator, Alamofire, and others based on the necessity of an iOS app.

FAQs

Niketan Sharma

Niketan Sharma is the CTO of Nimble AppGenie, a prominent website and mobile app development company in the USA that is delivering excellence with a commitment to boosting business growth & maximizing customer satisfaction. He is a highly motivated individual who helps SMEs and startups grow in this dynamic market with the latest technology and innovation.