Top app development companies interview: IndiaNIC

Jigar Panchal is the President, Global Sales and Marketing of IndiaNIC. The mobile app development company was founded in 1997 by Sandeep Mundra and is located in Ahmedabad, India. The company employs more than 400 IT professionals and developers.

Let’s see what Jigar Panchal has to say about IndiaNIC and the mobile app development world.

What does IndiaNIC do?

IndiaNIC is one of the first companies that started working on apps immediately after the launch of official SDKs for iOS and subsequently, for Android. With a team of around 100 app developers till this date, we already have developed a variety of app solutions for both smartphones and tablets.

Our app portfolio includes solutions for several industries including Healthcare, Education, Insurance and Legal, Transport and Logistics, Real Estate, Retail, Automotive, Sports and Entertainment, IOT based apps with connected hardware and of course, a lot of Social Networking apps.

Overall, the apps we work on include several enterprise apps for internal use, stand alone consumer apps as well as apps for SaaS based platforms. Since 2016, we’ve also started focusing on Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality apps as well, which is attracting a lot of buzz at the moment.

The key difference when it comes to mobile app development with IndiaNIC compared to others is the extremely strong understanding of the app ecosystem, large teams who are efficient in doing research for innovative technology and have the expertise in integration of 3rd party services for various purposes. However, the most important aspect of IndiaNIC is the human aspect. We listen to people for ideas and pave the way towards the goal by incorporating the best in the process - be it our clients, or be it our team members.

Having a long tail of experience from the beginning - it becomes easier for us to transform legacy systems into a mobile friendly solution with deep understanding of both web and mobile architecture.

What clients have you worked for?

So far, we have served over 7,000 clients for two decades, the majority of which are either enterprises or startups.

The big family of the clients we have worked with says it all about how flexible and approachable we are for working towards delivering solutions that create an impact.

We’ve already worked with reputed brands including fortune 500 companies for their digital needs. Our clients include Adidas, Yahoo!, Pepsi, Aconex, Vodafone, Gulfstream, Tata, BestBuy, Abbott, VFS Global, Government of India or McDonalds to name a few.

If you had to choose one category, what kind of app do you think is your mobile app development company’s specialty?

It’s difficult to identify one category out of many as our speciality. However, we’ve developed a ton of Social Networking and app based B2C portals. Some examples of social networking apps we’ve made are:

What is the average budget of the mobile apps IndiaNIC develops?

The average budget of our apps is over $15,000.

Do you develop all mobile apps in-house or do you outsource some parts of the process?

We’ve already got around 100 app developers who work on native, hybrid and cross-platform technology. Having a large in-house team, we’ve never felt the need of outsourcing. Our philosophy is simple, we won’t take a project for something we can’t do ourselves using our own resources.

Which would you say are the best mobile apps that your company has developed and why?

It’s like choosing a favourite child when you have more than one! However, I believe the one that strikes my mind and has left the highest impact either on our client and on us is Gulfstream Aerospace project for private jet aircrafts. They required an app prototype that interacts with the various peripherals and environment within the cabin of a private jet. The end user can control the cabin environment, operating via app.

It can also interact with the cabin crew. The app demanded a heavy integration with their internal hardware via internal protocol. The core challenge was to simulate the environment here in our development center which we did by having the hardware shipped to our office and go through multiple tests. Given the technology stack during the year 2011 - there were many technical challenges but we managed to sail through.

Do you prefer to build mobile apps with native, hybrid or web languages?

Our first preference is of course Native, as it gives more control over the app in terms of compatibility, hardware access, memory management and the security of the data within the app and during transit.

However, we also work on hybrid and web technologies - specially in cases where a lot of the solution is already built for web -, they can be utilized by wrapping them up in a native app. There are many complex cases where the business logic is controlled remotely from the server, and it heavily impacts the user interface and experience - we rely on web technology to handle those specific parts of the app.

Let’s focus on iOS and Android mobile app development. Which are the Pros and Cons of each platform?

I believe it’s a simple question to answer - both platforms are literally in the same race with almost similar approach and features.

Android, in spite of having more liberal control for development over iOS, gives a hard time to deal with device fragmentation, OEMs and OS support. It’s quite unpredictable when it comes to stability of the app given the scenario of a plethora of devices.

While with iOS is more of a closed ecosystem, and quite predictable. The devices are pretty much standardized, you know the market share of the devices consumers use and that’s what makes it easier to focus on the real problem rather than figure out how to deal with a diversity of OS/devices. There’s a little difference and overlap when it comes down to screen resolutions and OS, but with iOS - it is not as tricky as it is with Android.

Which one will evolve more within the next 5 years?

Android certainly has added advantages in spite of lacking the smoothness that iOS has. With more affordable devices and an increasing Android based hardware - it’s only going to get better and organized. In fact, Android is pretty much standardising a lot of things within the ecosystem of the Play Store guidelines, more advanced frameworks such as ARCore - and a more stringent app review process.

iOS still is going to remain a close ended system that constraints a lot of innovation outside the Apple ecosystem. Given the flexibility of Android - it is only going to get better and more acceptable.

Which device is the best in the market right now?

I’ve been using iPhone 7 for six months - and I don’t think there’s any other specific device that has grabbed my attention. While the Apple hardware, and camera is as good as the latest smartphones out there - I believe it has more to do with the secure operating system powered by iOS, and the entire App Store mechanism.

I can be 100% sure that the apps I download from App Store are secure, won’t steal my password, won’t install any malware and of course, I won’t be compromising my data in case I lose my device.

And which device do you feel more comfortable developing an app for?

We’re extremely comfortable when it comes to smartphones, less than 20% of apps actually require tablet version as per our records. The experience can be much more personalized when it comes to iOS and Android smartphones in general cases.

Why is AppFutura useful to you?

I’ve been following AppFutura for six months and I believe it is a great network to help connect app developers with the prospects. The platform has all the key components to be able to portray a company thoroughly with several key insights for prospects to look at. It certainly makes a huge impact for prospects in terms of identifying the right service provider.

Moreover, we are looking forward to participate in the project bidding process, we have seen there are really good concepts always available, where we can participate in the bidding process and create a stronger funnel for more projects for our company.

Additionally - the pricing model and the support we saw from AppFutura certainly is an icing on the cake.

Go to AppFutura's IndiaNIC developer profile to get more information about them.

Are you a project owner? You can publish your app project on AppFutura or check our top mobile app development companies directory. Follow our basic steps before you hire the best mobile app development company for your project.

If you want to know more about mobile app development, join our mobile app developers forum.