Photo and video-sharing applications like Instagram is the highest level of social mobile networks. When it’s only started working, it cost $500.000, but then it got 10 investors and became a 57 million dollars piece of cake.
Now it was estimated to 100 billion american dollars and has 1 billion people of active users. This fact causes the establishment of many famous apps like this: Snapchat, Swipe, Flickr, etc. It’s a really lucrative idea if it has its uniqueness.
Beforehand, photo-sharing and editing pictures were two different stories but Instagram found its own special feature by combining these options together. So it helped the team to get bigger investments and improve the project for various mobile platforms.
Nowadays, it’s not a simple photo-sharing app, but a social platform for Android and IOS smartphones which offer a vast number of functions for entrepreneurs and marketing workers.
Tips for creating a successful photo-sharing app
So what makes Instagram so frequently-used and worldwide? Simple design and well-developed features is the very answer. The approach to implementing features and design is crucial and determines the success of an app. We are to provide some tips:
• Research the market and your target audience
• First of all, search for your competitors and find benefits and drawbacks of their product. It will help you to improve your own one. Determine a target audience which will use your app and learn their preferences, trends, etc. Shape your idea according to the previous stage. Choose the concept and a set of key product features you want to be known for;
• Think carefully about a list of features and design
• Such application should catch the eye so use the following options as authorization, edition of the user profile, geolocation, messaging, connection to well-known social networks(e.g. Facebook), signing up for other profiles, different kinds of notifications, etc;
• Choose a development team to perform such tasks
• If you aren’t ready to implement the functionality on your own, find an experienced development company and ask for a free estimation of your project(Multi-Programming Solutions has such option) to set the timeline and budget of your future application. Pay attention that these positions may vary according to the number of features you will need to add during the working process;
• Implement a simple design
• Avoid using many colours, intrinsic shapes, make interface really user-friendly and simply accessible;
• Make marketing strategies work
• Prepare all the materials, set right marketing approaches and promotion timeline. Create a schedule of announcements and promotions, set the budget for it and share your app worldwide;
• Take care of being accessible by the users
• Don’t forget about support area and create technical support, communication with the consumers via email or forums. This is the opportunity for you to get fresh client feedback and improve your Instagram-like application: fix bugs, add new features or design elements, bring updates.
Android Vs iOS
For creating an Instagram-like application, you will need a different set of tools, technologies and follow techniques which are individual for both of them.
Android needs to use such techs:
• JDK
• Java is a number one language for building apps for Android so you need Java Development Kit for the working process. It consists of the most necessary libraries, tools, and extensions that you can use for creating your own libraries of plugins and extensions. Notice that the JDK is supposed to have development tools, source code and public JRE.
• IDE
• There is one more important tool for the development process which is Integrated Development Environment. Here are basic approaches and platforms for the building an app. Also Eclipse is a must-have in addition to the software. It’s an Android fully integrated app from Google.
• AVB
• This is the right tool for testing your Android photo-sharing application. You can use not only one, but a few items for it(e.g. AVD).
• Speaking about iOS, it’s pretty similar to the Android development process, but there is a difference in technologies for sure:
• XCode
• Every iOS app is based on this programming platform, so you need the latest update of this core tool to be launched on Apple smartphones and devices.
• iOS Software Development Kit
• This tool is crucial for iOS app building process. It has the most essential set of tools which allows the integration with iCloud and Touch ID.
• Objective-C
• Objective-C, also known as Objective C, ObjC or Obj-C is Apple’s compiled object-oriented programming language, built on the basis of the C language and Smalltalk paradigms.
• Swift
• Swift is a powerful and intuitive programming language for macOS, iOS, watchOS and tvOS, but differs from Objective-C in a wider range of features.
• Textmate
• This helpful tool will assist you with sorting out and operating long rows of code. Also, you can use JEdit for such purposes.
• Adobe Illustrator
• Illustrator is a program for creating vector graphics. Often it is used to create illustrations, cartoon graphics, diagrams, charts and logos. Unlike raster images, in which information is stored in a grid of individual points, Illustrator uses mathematical equations to create forms. This allows you to resize vector images without any loss in resolution. CorelDRAW or Xara Designer are also used for designing your future Instagram-like app.
Instagram-like app’s features case
As Instagram is an app which attracts attention the most, it happens because of specific set of features. Here are the top of options that are important to implement:
• Authorisation via email, phone number or Facebook account;
• Creating and editing of user’s profile;
• Creating the post with both content and pictures;
• Customization of pictures;
• Geolocation;
• Subscription to other users’ profiles;
• Search;
• Push-notifications;
• Feed.
• Total timeline in building up an Instagram-like app is approximately:
• iOS – 180-240 hours
• Android – 180-240 hours
• Backend – 165 hours
Total is 525-645 hours
Multi-Programming Solutions can create a PWA photo-sharing application for you which will work at any device with different screens and platforms.
How to make money on such an app
Such an app needs much time and investments to be launched but the question is how to start earning money in it. There are the most frequently used ways to get money on it:
• Advertising
• Business owners and entrepreneurs are able to create profiles, so that they need to be promoted via the app notifications or posts to get more followers;
• In-app purchasing
• Selling new filters and effects for photos will enable your customers to make their product better.
• Special offers for active users
You can price really active users by giving new feature to use per some time limit for free. Or provide rewards for reaching a specific number of followers. Turn on your imagination!
Final words
Building up an Instagram-like application needs much work and attention to it. There are a lot of opportunities and niches which are still empty and waiting for you. Multi-Programming Solutions has already created a number of Instagram-like profitable apps, e.g. QuikLikes. The app enables users to get thousands of likes for their Instagram photos. Check it out and join the team. Bring your idea to life and become one of the greatest competitors for Instagram with us.
https://multi-programming.com/how-to-create-an-instagram-like-app
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