With the development in technology and the increase in large numbers of the customer base using mobile phones, these gadgets are now no more restricted to just making calls or sending SMS but also as a mode of entertainment, accessing the internet on the run, using customized applications by the user, marketing and statistics purposes, chatting, votes, etc.

The mobile devices could be personal digital assistants, enterprise digital assistants or mobile phones. Such devices are resource constrained, low power devices and the process for designing software for such devices is known as Mobile Application development. Mobile Application developers can very well design the games, utility software or customized applications to be deployed on these types of mobile related devices. Mobile application software development makes use of platforms for starting up with the development process. Some of the major platforms used by developers for designing the mobile related software can be listed as:

1. Blackberry Application Development

2. Windows Mobile Development

3. iPhone Application Development

4. BREW Application Development

5. Symbian Application Development

6. Android Application Development

Each of the above mentioned platforms have specific devices associated with them which are easily available in the market and have different programming language/platform available for development. Mobile applications can be developed for various categories or fields depending upon their usage in that particular field. Let's have a look at those categories.

* Entertainment & Multimedia

* Search Tool

* Social Networking

* Utilities

* Business and Finance

* Banking

* Weather

Many software development companies are now emphasizing on mobile application development to meet the large customer requirements. The highly skilled developers make use of the platform specific SDK for designing the mobile application software. There are definite set of requirements which needs to be followed for developing mobile applications. The requirement can be based on the Usability, software security, performance issues, and functionality. For developing successful mobile applications, following steps are required:-

Mobile Functionality Requirements: After gathering the customer's requirement and doing preliminary application study, the first step is to create the functional and non-functional requirement document i.e. FRS and Non-FRS. These documents define the functional and non-functional specifications of the application. Some of the main criterion like the function of the application, input required for marketing purpose and application phases should be clearly defined.

1. Appealing UI: The user interface is designed which is attractive and user-friendly. The application may also support different type of orientations i.e. portrait or landscape. Moreover, the application is designed keeping in mind that it is scalable and adapt to changing customer requirements.

2. Target platforms and devices: The customer may decide the platforms and devices for which they want to design and deploy the application. The devices could be iPhone, Android, Windows Phone etc.

Today, Mobile application development firms follow a very quick to market approach considering reduced cost and high quality as the major features. This in turn helps clients in getting a cost-effective world class quality product and the company developing the software gets a fully satisfied successful client.