So, you want to create a 5.0-star rated app? With no prior experience in building one?
If I’m going to be completely honest and speak from my experience, it will be rough. There will be sweat, tears, blood, and broken bones…
Just kidding, it won’t be as hard as you might think. Trust me,
I, myself managed to build a 5-star rated app when I was twenty and had no prior experience or proper mentorship. If you want to hear the secrets of my “success,” well, fasten your seat belts; this will be a bumpy ride…
So how can I build a 5 Star app?
1. Avoid Too many features: I know, I know, it’s your first app. You want to make it the best thing possible. With so many great features, showcasing all the cool stuff you’ve learned.
Well, hold your horses.
This is not the way to go; you’re basically digging your own grave. “Why?” You may ask.
Well, have a guess at how many developers with years of experience and practice are also trying to do the same thing. There are hundreds, if not thousands, and you want to compete?
I’m sorry, it’s just not doable…
Instead, focus on one main feature of the app and do it properly. When I was creating my first app, I had so many ideas millions of features, but in the end, the app only had 2.
2. Don’t overcomplicate things: Please, don’t over-engineer your solution. There are so many times that I’ve seen developers overcomplicate stuff, especially beginners, who think that complex code is better. No, it’s not.
Complex code sucks. Why? When you overcomplicate things, you create points where you tend to forget about certain cases, and when that happens, bugs and unexpected behaviors will also happen, and we definitely don’t want that.
3. Your code will be terrible: I’m not exaggerating.
You will probably write the worst lines of code in your life and have the worst architecture. On top of that, there will be no optimization whatsoever and no clean file structure.
4. But do these things really matter to the end user? No, they don’t. None of these things matter; however the optimization does. The only important thing is to avoid having infinitive loops in your code. We don’t want to set someone’s phone on fire.
With time, practice, and a mentor, you will get better at this.
When I look at the code that I wrote a few years ago, I laugh at myself. Not because of stupidity, I wasn’t stupid, just inexperienced, the same as you are now!
5. Energy Trading: When I was working on my first app, I spent more time on testing than coding. Testing on various devices with different sizes and operating systems (both newer and older). And testing different cases and scenarios, mimicking what users can do, even the stuff they shouldn’t (such as closing the app while the app is downloading), helped me ensure that my app would function properly.
You must understand you cannot control users. They can do whatever they want. But you can make sure that your app will function properly in all those cases (or at least the cases you can think of).
6. Start and don’t stop: The most important thing is that you start, code won’t write itself
And once you start, don’t stop!
You will definitely get discouraged at some point.
Creating an app is not easy; it’s painful but eventually really rewarding. The feeling you get when you write the code, run it, and it works, oh maaan, it feels soooo nice. But more times than not, once you decide to run your code, it will not work as you intended, or it will crash. At that point, it is important to stay motivated and hungry for success. Little by little, your app, your baby, will grow and start taking the shape of a really serious app.
When that day comes, and you look back at it all, you will say to yourself: ‘Man, I could’ve built that in a week…’
7. Rome wasn’t built in a day: At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if your app has 5 stars or is a total fail. It is important for you to start, be consistent, improve day by day, enjoy your journey, and remember:
Great things take time and patience.
-Amer Bešo-
Flutter developer @ Remobi
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