HOW TO MAINTAIN STABILITY OF MOBILE APPS AS THEY GROW

Scaling a mobile app is essential for business growth, but it often comes with stability challenges. As your user base expands and new features are added, the risk of crashes, slowdowns, and security vulnerabilities increases. Ensuring stability requires a strategic approach — one that balances scalability, performance, and user experience.

In this article, we’ll explore key strategies to improve mobile app stability and effectively manage mobile app growth. From building a scalable architecture to real-time performance monitoring and security compliance, we’ll cover essential steps to keep your app running smoothly as it scales.

MOBILE APP GROWTH STRATEGY: WHAT’S IN?

When building a mobile solution — no matter the niche you’re in — you should have mobile app growth​ in mind. Mobile app growth always means expanding the user base, which increases the demands for such aspects as functionality, quality, performance, and security. And here’s how you can address this.

1.

SCALABLE ARCHITECTURE

More users, more features, more data — your mobile app should be ready for any scenario. To avoid complete app redesigns in future, start with building a scalable architecture. Here are some principles to follow:

• Client-server model. By separating the mobile app (client) from backend services (server), you’ll be able to scale each component independently based on demand.
• Microservices. You can break down backend services into small, independently deployable modules called microservices. This will not only help you work simultaneously on separate services, but also scale them when needed. To wit, by gradually refactoring its monolithic architecture, Netflix managed to enhance the scalability and fault tolerance of their mobile app, which resulted in increasing user engagement by 20% and reducing app downtime by 30%.
• Cloud. Underpinned by cloud resources, you can extend your app with auto-scaling capabilities such as Azure App Services, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, etc. For example, Spotify uses Google Cloud Platform’s auto-scaling capabilities to address traffic spikes related to new music releases.
• API implementation enables independent scaling of the frontend and backend, improving app flexibility. And its ability to pair your mobile app with third-party services and resources will help extend functionality without impacting performance.
• Database scalability. Use databases such as Cassandra or MongoDB that scale horizontally across multiple nodes to deal with increased loads. Also, leverage best practices like normalization and clustering for minimized data redundancy and better load balancing.

2.

QUALITY ASSURANCE

Build a robust quality assurance strategy set to revamp the stability and overall quality of your mobile app. Don’t underestimate the power of these practices:

• Automated testing for unit, integration, and UI tests will help you quickly identify bugs in app functioning throughout app deployment and scaling.
• Performance testing. You should understand how your solution performs under various conditions. Load and stress testing will help detect potential bottlenecks in this regard.
• CI/CD. Establish Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment pipelines to automatically run tests on each code change, making sure that newly introduced features don’t lead to regressions.
• Real-device and OS compatibility testing identifies issues around different screen sizes, OS versions, and hardware specifications, which is key to ensuring compatibility and performance as your app grows across different environments.

Incorporate the best practices from your previous experience to continuously revisit and refine your QA strategy. Remember to adapt testing based on scaling challenges.

3.

PERFORMANCE MONITORING

With user base expansion, the number of requests in your mobile app increases exponentially. That’s why it’s so important to continuously track and analyze key performance indicators to ensure the solution’s speed, stability, and reliability.

For that to happen, choose reliable monitoring tools and integrate them into the development process from the very beginning. Also, set up alerts and notifications for performance issues and anomalies.

Pay particular attention to the following monitoring aspects: 

• App launch and response times. The longer users have to wait to open your app or perform a certain task, the more negative overall experience you’ll get. Tools like Datadog, AppDynamics, and Firebase Performance Monitoring will help you control these aspects.
• Crashes and errors will result in a damaged reputation and lost revenue. Minimize possible damage with monitoring tools such as Crashlytics by Google and Sentry.
• Resource overutilization around memory, CPU, or networks might lead to performance bottlenecks. Constantly monitor the consumption of these resources to timely perform the optimization of multimedia, databases, and connections. If needed, implement a reliable content delivery network (CDN). For instance, large streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and YouTube leverage CDNs to reduce latency and increase content availability.
• Network latency — the time taken for data to travel between the app and the server — should also be gauged with powerful tools. You can use Wireshark  — for capturing network traffic, Charles Proxy — for network debugging, JMeter — for load testing and performance testing, and native Apple and Google tools for detailed mobile metrics.

Be ready to continuously review performance data, as well as identify trends and areas for future improvements.

4.

CODE MANAGEMENT

Efficient code management is another way to maintain great solution stability within your mobile app growth strategy​. Here’s an overview of actionable recommendations on keeping your codebase organized, coordinated, and healthy throughout its lifecycle. 

• Version control allows you to track changes in the code over time to turn to previous versions, when needed — for edits comparison, rollback, or additional collaborative work.
• Regular code reviews presuppose systematic code examinations by one or more developers (besides the author) to early detect bugs, improve code quality, and guarantee adherence to coding standards.
• Code organization means arranging software code into logical modules, directories, and files for better understanding, navigation, and maintenance. To enhance code readability and maintainability, enforce consistent coding styles and naming conventions, use linters for catching issues, and establish clear documentation.
• Dependency management involves organizing, tracking, and updating external libraries or packages to better manage conflicts, upgrades, and versions of these dependencies. For that purpose, you can use tools such as Gradle or CocoaPods.
• Code refactoring will help you regularly revamp your code structure without changing its external behavior. This is needed for enhancing code readability, reducing complexity, simplifying algorithms, and eliminating redundancy.

More information about how you can optimize your code and development processes in general, can be found in this blog post.

5.

USER FEEDBACK MANAGEMENT

Managing user feedback and expectations is key to delivering an outstanding UX. Analyze user opinions when expanding your mobile app to new regions and niches through the following mechanisms:

• Bug reporting. This in-app feedback mechanism is a direct way for users to report bugs. Make the process as easy and non-intrusive as possible, for example, via ‘shake-to-report’ feature or a specific button / menu option. When capturing the bug details, pay attention to a device’s data (model, OS, etc.), mobile app version, and attached files.
• Surveys are a great option for gauging user satisfaction, collecting opinions on new functionality, and detecting usability concerns. Implement surveys wisely: after major updates or after most important and/or complicated interactions within an app. You can use Net Promoter Score (NPS) with a single question to analyze loyalty, Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) with particular features, or custom questionnaires.
• User analytics. By integrating analytics tools into your solution, you can track user behavior, including screen views, navigation patterns, feature uses, sentiments, and crashes. Also, analyze how users interact with your app and what they say about it in social media, app stores, review websites, forums, and other external resources.
• User Acceptance Testing (UAT) is performed at the final stage of the QA process, when real users gauge your app to guarantee it functions as expected and addresses their needs. UAT validates the overall user experience within the target environment and identifies remaining bugs before the app is launched to the market / re-launched after major updates within your mobile app growth​ strategy.

6.

SECURITY AND COMPLIANCE

Make sure your mobile app development growth​ strategy includes a multi-faceted approach to security and regulatory compliance.

• Rock-solid security practices — that should be implemented from the very ground up — include sensitive data encryption, input validation, robust authentication/authorization mechanisms, least privilege access, error handling, regular updates of dependencies and libraries, as well as security audits and penetration testing.
• Compliance framework. Based on your app functionality, target audience, regions, and niche, establish and maintain compliance policies, including GDPR, CCPA, FISMA, NIST, COBIT, and ISO 27002. For payment data privacy — comply with PCI-DSS, for sensitive health information protection — make sure your app addresses the HIPAA and HITECH regulations.
• Regular real-time monitoring of the app’s security posture comprises threat detection, vulnerability scanning, and access control monitoring. Adapt your security measures accordingly to the changing security threats and regulatory changes. You should also have a comprehensive incident response plan in place — to address possible breaches in a timely manner.

7.

UPDATES AND MAINTENANCE

Besides the previously mentioned importance of bug fixes, code optimization, as well as performance and security enhancements, pay heed to the following aspects:

• Platform and device compatibility. Constantly adapt your mobile app to support the latest iOS and Android versions. Make sure the solution performs correctly across various devices and screen sizes. Integrate the latest versions of APIs and SDKs.
• Localization and internationalization are especially important when your app grows. Adapt your app to different languages and regions, considering cultural differences.
• Feature updates. As your app expands to new territories and audiences, update its functionality: add new features, refine existing ones, and remove those that are no longer relevant.
• Automation and documentation. Make the most of automated tools to streamline maintenance tasks such as testing, monitoring, analytics, server-side and database maintenance, etc. Establish clear and detailed documentation of your app’s architecture, code, and maintenance procedures. Keep users always informed about updates and planned downtime.

Conclusion

If you want your mobile app to remain stable as it grows, implement a scalable architecture, perform proactive network monitoring, continuously update your code, and leverage the best security practices. On top of that, prioritize user feedback to keep functionality and performance at the best. Ready to take your mobile app to the next level? Start by assessing your current infrastructure and identifying areas for improvement. We at Touchlane are ready to assist, taking into account your specific business needs, market competition, and changing industry regulations.