Top Tools for Mobile Developers
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Mobile applications are taking up more space on our phones than ever before, and the market for mobile app development is increasing exponentially with it. App downloads are expected to exceed 225 billion in 2016 and the total market for apps will approach 77 billion by 2017, so having the right skill set and toolbox is crucial to getting and staying employed in this field. The following are three common tools developers often use.
Sketch
At the basic level, an app is a graphic with programmable buttons. The ability to create this interface or UI is a key skill that employers look for. Historically, developers have used Photoshop and similar products, but the market has shifted to Sketch. Sketch has the ability to natively create vector images with the ease of a design program, like a marriage of Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. Sketch is also designed with developers in mind and is capable of integrating coding languages very easily into any interface.
PhoneGap
Once you have a design, PhoneGap is an open-source, free program for coding and packaging your app design into a fully interactive tool. It has support for CSS, HTML, and Javascript. Once coded, it can be deployed to a wide variety of platforms. This tool is critical for any app developer to master.
Swift
Given that Apple still owns the lion’s share of apps, it makes good employment sense to gain some expertise in Swift, Apples newest programming language. Swift is a programmer-friendly language, and is built similar to other languages like Objective-C. The language is expandable and allows a developer to do nearly anything their client can imagine. It also maintains a strong knowledge base and users can find answers to questions fairly quickly.
There are other platforms and languages, as well as do-it-yourself tools that allow a developer to market themselves in this competitive area. However, these three programs will provide a good foundation for anyone who would like to become a successful mobile developer.
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