Many businesses have realized the importance of a mobile app to offer highly personalized service to their customers. However, not all of them understand the need to maintain their mobile apps regularly. 

You have to realize that your work is not over just by developing and launching your app. You need to stay invested in continuously updating the app through regular security patches as well as improved and new functionalities. 

Regular maintenance has a direct impact on how engaged your target audience stays with your app.

Your mobile app should incorporate the latest technologies to stay in sync with the current market trends. 

If you neglect to upgrade the UI/UX and other important features of your mobile app, then it is bound to fail eventually. 

Regular maintenance makes the app more engaging, reduces downtime, increases data visibility, and you get a better ROI among others. By knowing this, one question might arise in your mind: how much money do I have to pay for app maintenance? 

In general, app maintenance cost depends on the things that we are going to discuss in this article.

Best Practices of Mobile App Maintenance to Keep It Working Optimally

Add New Features

You should keep a close watch on the interacting pattern of the users with your app. This will give you an idea of what features are used most of the time and what features the users rarely use. Based on the analyses you can update or add advanced features that they regularly use to keep them interested and offer value addition.

You should also keep a close eye on the user’s feedback. Based on such feedback, you can remove something that is affecting the user experience adversely. 

Adding such minor updates is a great way of keeping your app updated and avoids designing and developing a completely new app every few years.

Regular Update of UI/UX

User habits, styles, and trends change regularly. What you have built today using the latest technology and UI/UX may look dated a few years from now. 

Therefore, you must update the user interface regularly to ensure the long-term success of your mobile app.

Fix the Bugs

If you do not regularly lookout for bugs in your mobile app, then it will drive the users away. Bugs if not treated in time can add further and crash your app. 

Therefore, you must regularly check your app for any bug-related or other technical issues and fix them in time. 

Reading the user feedback regularly also informs you about the presence of any bug that is affecting the performance of the app and you can then address the issue ASAP.

Monitoring the Performance

You must regularly check the app for any lag in performance, slow response, and loading time. You can go through the app analytical reports to find out more about the technical performance of your app.

This will help you to take necessary action in time and ensure that your app performs optimally all the time, thereby minimizing any chance of losing the users due to poor performance issues.

Schedule a System Maintenance

As the owner of a mobile app, you must schedule regular system maintenance. This will help you keep on top of any emerging issues (both technical as well as user experience related) and solve them in time. It will also keep your app updated so that it can work flawlessly and will not face any unexpected shutdown issues.

When you are scheduling maintenance, then you must inform the users beforehand otherwise, they will feel frustrated when confronted by the “system down for maintenance” message when they try to use your app.

Check Licenses

Most of the mobile applications you see in the market are developed using licensed technology. Therefore, you must regularly check whether you need to renew the software license or certification of technology.

Support for New Hardware/Software

You have to remember that technology is ever-changing and versions of different operating systems are launched every year. Furthermore, even on the hardware front, mobile devices are getting new features, higher processing power, faster RAM, and so on.

Therefore, you must provide a regular update to your mobile app so that it remains compatible with not only the legacy mobile phones but also the latest ones that are released in the market.

If you do not do this, then you will start losing your users as your app would not be able to keep pace with the evolving technology and would be left behind.

Improve User Security and Privacy

Nowadays, a lot of people use their smartphones for conducting online transactions. Therefore, you must always check for any security loopholes that could be exploited by hackers to harm the interest of the users. In case you find any loophole in your mobile app, you must immediately roll out security patches to plug it.

Furthermore, the privacy issue is also a matter of great concern for people online. Therefore, do not ask for too many permissions for operating your app. You should ask only those permissions that are essential for operating the app, which would give users a feeling of security and trust.

Conclusion

These best practices will help you maintain your app after you deploy it in the App Store. The practices that I have shared with you in this article ensure that your app is never outdated and that you get good returns on the investment that you made during its development process.