Mobile Development Tools

For mobile application developers, there are many services and web tools. Advanced companies and lonely developers are familiar with all these services firsthand. But a novice can get confused and make the wrong choice. It is possible to go to another service without any problems, but after all it is cool from the very beginning to use the best and convenient one

Our company uses many similar services and tools, so I decided to tell you briefly about the best of them. About basic things like Basecamp, GitHub, etc. speech will not be, because These are not purely specific things for mobile development.
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Lets go through design, server solutions, testing and analytics.

Design, prototypes, mockups

Designing and designing the interface is one of the first steps in any development. The following services are easy to learn, both for PM and for the developer. The designer will most likely use his tools, perhaps Ps or OmniGraffle. An important component is also the discussion of layouts, especially when the team consists of remote employees.

Mocku.ps [Free] ( demo )

Everything is simple here: you fill in the finished sketch and can hang any local notes on it. There is no registration / authorization. Each new mocap is a link with a unique ID. Then you can give it to anyone - the recipient will have a read-only mode.

MockingBird [from $ 9 / month] ( demo )

This service is already more advanced. There is everything to create mokapov from scratch. Suitable by the way, and not only for the design of mobile interfaces.

Proto.io [Free or from $ 24 / month] ( demo )

A sophisticated service for prototyping. The free version is for reference only. The cheap price per month is compensated by a really cool set of chips: we especially like the launch of dynamic prototypes on real devices to maximize the tap experiment.

Moqups [Free] ( demo )

A simplified version of proto.io, but free. A good set of stencils and a handy feature is the connectivity of several screens through linked buttons.

Server platforms (Push, Location, etc)

If an application is developed for a large customer or project, then it is obvious that the entire server part will spin on one or more of its servers. If the project is not large, but you need to implement the functionality of push-notifications or data synchronization, then you should pay attention to the following services.

UrbanAirShip [Free, and further depending on the requirements]

Urban has several products: these are Push-notifications, Location-tools, Passbook integration, and even little things. In the case of a Free fare, you can test Push notifications in applications for free; you just need to upload a bundle with server certificates to the control panel.

Parse [Free and from $ 199 / month]

Parse also has a good set of products: data storage, push notifications, social chips, code in the cloud. Free tariff gives a good set for the deployment of Push-services. The guys are flexible in choosing tariffs for you, if you have a non-standard set of indicators for appeals to the API or the total number of Push messages per month.

Testing and collecting kreshy

TestFlight [Free].

Of course everyone heard about TestFlight. De facto, this is the standard for delivering test builds to iOS devices. Free and extremely convenient. They recently announced that they are preparing and the service / SDK for Android - we will wait.

BugSense [Free and from $ 19 / month]

Excellent service for collecting kreshy applications of different platforms. Everything is convenient, understandable and accessible. Recently, they began to introduce analytics functionality, but so far in beta and information is not always valid.

Crashlytics [Free, but through an invite]

Only for iOS, Android version is still in development. Relatively fresh service, if I'm not mistaken, it was previously paid. Currently, the Enterprise functionality of the tariff is provided free of charge, but only upon request for an invite. The SDK is extremely easy to integrate, and crash reports are shown through the native OS X application. It looks all too cute, sometimes infa better than from BugSense.

Analytics

After the release of the application, it is extremely important to follow its life cycle. For this there is a considerable number of analytical services. In addition to statistics on downloads, updates, rating, etc., it is important to monitor user behavior in the application. This is necessary to understand the relevance of the functions of the application and for various marketing cases.

Flurry Analytics [Free]

This is a recognized leader in analytics of your mobile product. Collect all the information that is possible. It makes no sense to list all the possibilities - you just need to take the SDK and integrate it into all the applications you release.

Localytics [Free and from $ 95 / month]

Analogue Flurry, more likeable, the functionality is similar. I will not be able to tell more details, for the present have not used to the full extent.

AppFigures , Distimo , AppAnnie

These three services are engaged in analytics directly to your sales. You connect your iTunes Connect and Google Play accounts to them and look at the graphs of downloads, reviews, ratings visually - compare all this with competitors, etc. Distimo offers paid AppIQ chips, which compare your performance with competitors in more detail, and AppAnnie is simpler, but free.

Conclusion

I am sure that if you recall all such services and tools, you’ll get not an article, but a full-fledged wiki-knowledge base. If I undeservedly missed some service that you think is more convenient or that you really love and want to share your feelings with us, then write about it in the comments.