Mobile App Architecture Designing: Your Step-By-Step Guide for 2024

The mobile app development market is incorporating new technologies and safety standards for steady growth. These mobile apps offer a better user experience, which has increased our dependency on them, making them a one-stop solution for day-to-day tasks.

But beneath the sleek user interface, lies a complex and detailed architecture of mobile application that impacts the overall app's functionality. This architecture can be considered as a blueprint of how the app performs and eventually, evolves.

Mobile app developers need to be vigilant when choosing the right architecture as it can greatly impact the app’s maintainability, scalability, and performance.

With constantly changing user needs and technology landscape, understanding mobile app architecture is no longer an option, it has become a necessity.

Keep reading this blog to learn about the ins and outs of mobile app architecture.

An Overview of Mobile App Architecture

In simple terms, mobile app architecture is an outline of mobile applications that contains all the components, from patterns to techniques required for developing an app. It provides a roadmap to developing a functional and well-structured app without any complications.

The components selected in mobile app development architecture depend on tech stack, design, complexity, features, and app requirements. By having a detailed architecture, you can easily create a mobile application and maintain it properly in the years to come.

Avoid interchanging mobile app architecture terms with technology stack as the former one majorly deals with user requirements and the development process. It includes everything from tech stack leveraged to data flows and collections.

Requirements of Mobile App Architecture Designing

Along with knowing the steps to building an app, it’s also necessary to learn the major principles of mobile app development architecture. Why? Because it ensures that the app performs as expected and meets for the best results.

Here are some of the major requirements of mobile app architecture designing:

1. Efficiency

An application executing the tasks successfully indicates that the features added to it are working as expected. A well-planned architecture helps an app perform efficiently under multiple load conditions.

2. Portability

To survive and perform well in the market, an app needs to properly respond to the technological and environmental customer preferences.

Adding, updating, or deleting any feature from the mobile app will directly impact the server, database, and other systems. The portability feature also decreases the negative impact that comes with the changes.

3. Testability

When creating a mobile app architecture, it becomes necessary to test every individual component under different conditions to maintain consistency.

4. Security

Under the security of mobile app development architecture, PCI, GDPR, SSL, HTTPS, and encryption techniques compliance adherence is crucial. The security of mobile app architecture covers the potential entry points for hackers and keeps the app development process protected. Lastly, it ensures that the developed app follows the government’s rules and regulations.

5. Manageability

Managing mobile apps helps in monitoring the execution of processes, system performance, and database security. With a good architecture, monitoring and maintaining the mobile app development process becomes easier.

6. Reusability

When leveraging the existing components, app redesigning, app development, and app upgrade gets accelerated. It is necessary for the app architecture to be flexible enough to enable reusability.

7. Maintainability

Creating a powerful mobile app that stays relevant in the market for a long time requires constant bug fixes, tech advancements, and regular upgrades. By following the high maintainability approach, you can make mobile app architecture changes inexpensive and time-savvy.

8. Performance

Users like an app that runs at its best speed, without any glitches. Better speed also reduces the bouncing and abandonment rate by users.

A detailed app architecture pays attention to efficient memory and app design for maintaining the app’s performance. It also helps in meeting the user’s minimal expectations.

Mobile App Development Architecture Layers

Almost all the app development architecture consists of three layers, i.e., the presentation layer, the business layer, and the data layer:

1. Presentation Layer

The presentation layer in the mobile app development architecture looks into how to present an app properly to end users. During the designing of this layer, mobile app developers need to identify the right client type for the intended infrastructure. Also, the client’s deployment restrictions should be considered.

Lastly, developers must select the right data format and use the best data validation strategy to keep the apps protected from invalid entries.

2. Business Layer

The next one is the business layer, which looks into the elements on the business front. It includes workflow, different business components, and entities under the domain model and service model.

Here, the domain layer focuses on the common application function set that end users can use. Whereas, the service model is more about expertise and knowledge linked to certain problem areas.

3. Data Layer

The data layer must meet the application’s requirements and help with secure data transactions. The mobile app developers should maintain the data while keeping this layer open for modifications as per the changing business requirements.

Ideally, the data layer contains data-specific components, including helpers, service agents, utilities, and access components.

These three mobile app development architecture components fall under the Network Layer and Persistence Layer. Here, the former helps in making network calls, and the later simplifies data access for storage in mobile app backend architecture.

Android Mobile App Architecture

Apps created for specific platforms like Android are referred to as native apps. These apps are developed using popular languages like Java and Kotlin and support a large number of Android-based devices.

But do you know which architecture for mobile app development is best for Android? The answer is Clean Architecture as it gives out the best result.

Here’s why you must use Clean Architecture for Android App Development:

iOS Mobile App Architecture

Like Android apps, iOS apps are also a type of native apps. These apps are built using languages like Objective-C and Swift.

The most popularly used iOS app architecture is MVC. Here’s why:

Hybrid Mobile App Architecture

With hybrid apps, you can bring together the elements of web and native applications. These apps are built using web technologies like CSS, JavaScript, and HTML. Not to mention, hybrid apps are cost-effective and can be built more quickly for different platforms.

Cross-Platform Mobile App Architecture

Cross-platform apps are similar to hybrid apps because they are also made to run on different operating systems using a single codebase. These apps are made through different tools, technologies, and frameworks, using which developers can write code and deploy on multiple platforms.

Instead of a specific web language, cross-platform apps depend on a variety of tools, frameworks, and technologies.

Conclusion

As the success of mobile app development depends on its architecture, it’s important for you to pay attention to the necessary features. You need to carefully choose the features and figure out how they will be connected in architectural ways.

We at Protonshub Technologies, provide full lifecycle mobile app development service to a vast range of industries. Our dedicated app developers have the necessary skill set to create a detailed mobile app architecture design.

Reach out to us to learn more about mobile app architecture design.

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Ekta Singh

"Senior Content Writer"

Ekta Singh is a rookie food experimentalist and k-drama fan with 4+ years of experience in writing. Bridging gaps between companies and customers through conversion-driven content is her forte. She believes in writing stories for a living and living life for exploring places.