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Developing a Custom iPhone or iPad App Can Benefit Your Business

  • Dec 10, 2010
Companies of all sizes and in all industries are seeing the incredible potential of the Apple iPhone and iPad, and many are looking to have custom apps developed, either for use in-house by employees, or by their customers and/or clients. Best-selling author and avid iPhone/iPad user Jason Rich shows you how to do it for your business.

Apple’s App Store for the iPhone, iTouch, and iPad currently offers more than 250,000 apps. However, companies of all sizes and in all industries are discovering the potential benefits of having a custom-made app.

Why Create an App?

By hiring an independent iPhone/iPad app developer, companies are creating innovative, proprietary, and highly specialized apps for use in-house—for example, to give a sales force a streamlined method for entering and processing orders while on the road, while granting them full access to an online inventory database or catalog from their mobile device.

In some situations, cutting-edge companies are developing custom apps to distribute to their customers and clients as a way to boost sales, distribute marketing or promotional content, improve customer service, increase brand awareness, and/or build customer loyalty.

Thanks to the GPS capabilities and a Maps app built in to the iPhone and iPad, a custom app can determine where a customer is located at any given moment, and direct them to a company’s nearest retail location. This same customized app can allow customers to place an order online from their mobile device, and have it waiting for them upon their arrival, or in the case of Pizza Hut, for example, customers can arrange for a pizza delivery with a few taps on their mobile device’s screen.

The cost of developing a custom app is becoming far more economical than it was just a year ago, due in part to increased competition among independent software developers. Meanwhile, sales of Apple’s iPhone, iTouch, and iPad continue at a strong and steady pace. Between January and September 2010, Apple sold upwards of 9.5 million iPhone units, bringing the total number of iPhones sold (including all models) to 51.15 million since it was originally released in 2007.

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Last Update: November 17, 2020