Mobile Application Porting

By Author: Susan Smith
Total Articles: 132
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The mobile landscape is highly fragmented, with multiple OSes and flavors, numerous device vendors, and varying form factors. With the influx of new devices every other day, the situation is going from bad to worse. The developers and enterprises are the receiving end of this nightmare, while the service organizations are clamoring for market share, offering porting services.

What is mobile application porting?

Application porting is the process of changing an application so that it can be executed on computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed. The term is also used when software/hardware is changed to make them usable in different environments.

By derivation, mobile application porting means either porting a legacy app (designed to run on traditional computing platforms) to run on a mobile platform (e.g. gtalk working on a mobile phone / tablet) OR porting a mobile app from one platform (e.g. iOS) to run on another (e.g. Android) OR porting a mobile app to run on a different hardware / OS configuration (e.g. making an iPhone app run on ...
... iPad). In the mobile app world, porting typically entails redevelopment of the app for the new platform while maintaining the features / UI of the existing app (if possible).

Process of mobile app porting

Application assessment: The UI, functionality and performance of the existing app are thoroughly studied, along with the bank-end integrations if any.

Platform and device assessment: both the existing and target device and platforms are assessed to rule out any limitations and / or incompatibilities

Application design and testing: The app for the new platform is designed and thoroughly tested, and any errors removed. The signoff on the new app is then received from the app owner.

Application Launch

Benefits of mobile application porting

In all honesty, for most mobile app porting scenarios, there just is no choice fro the application owner. For e.g. if an enterprise on Blackberry platform opens its doors to BYOD, it has to port its employee apps to iOS and Android platforms, as they will be used by the employees. Similarly, if a retail vendor wants the users of a particular platform to shop online through their smart devices, the porting of their app to that platform is mandatory.

Outside the mandate however, a lot of mobile app porting happens by choice too. A lot of enterprises are investing in mobility for its benefits.

Many intranet apps for enterprises are going mobile to increase employee productivity and comfort. A lot of managers now are approving requests on their mobile phones rather than being chained to a desk. Field services organizations are utilizing mobile app for staff deployment and SLA commitments.

Enterprises are also moving their business apps from legacy to mobile or adding new platforms under their app portfolio for growth, security, and research. Mobile apps provide the businesses a unique way to reach their customers while on the go. Location based services are extensively used to guide the (potential) customers to the nearest store or a cab to the waiting passenger. Marketing teams extract and analyze a ton of data through mobile app usage. Also, certain features offered by certain platforms (like validation of apps in Apple app store) are used by enterprises to enable enhanced features / accesses.

With mobility adoption on the rise, moving from legacy apps to mobile, or from one platform to another is not a question of ‘if’, but ‘when’. A lot of reusable work is being done by services organizations, and should be leveraged by the enterprises seeking to tap the full potential of mobility.

The author is associated with a well known enterprise mobile application developer company, mobile app development Dallas TX and iPhone application development companies in Noida