--- title: "Why Building Mobile Apps Is So Much Harder Than It Looks" url: https://daily.dev/posts/why-building-mobile-apps-is-so-much-harder-than-it-looks-mohxnizex source_url: https://www.thomashanning.com/why-building-mobile-apps-is-so-much-harder-than-it-looks/ type: article source: "ThomasHanning.com" published: 2025-03-28T19:14:37.555Z updated: 2025-03-28T19:14:52.901Z tags: ["mobile", "android", "ios", "privacy", "app-store"] reading_time: 10 upvotes: 407 comments: 41 language: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Why Building Mobile Apps Is So Much Harder Than It Looks **[ThomasHanning.com](https://daily.dev/sources/thomashanning)** · 10 min read · 407 upvotes · 41 comments ## Summary Mobile development is a demanding field requiring careful management of limited hardware resources, unpredictable network conditions, strict app store review processes, and high privacy expectations. Developers must optimize for smooth performance, handle offline capabilities, and ensure robust security, all while meeting high user expectations and dealing with difficult testing and debugging processes. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@null\_69** · 49 upvotes > This is the same reason why software is so crap these days (no, it is not acceptable for a software to take 2, 3 seconds to load): > > There is a theory that software used to be a lot faster in the days of 486, Pentium, etc. (remember: those machines run at 66Mhz and had some 4 to 8 MEGAbytes of RAM (yes, 1/2048 of that a base M4 has today). Back then, people who wrote software had two qualities: > > 1) They knew what they were doing > 2) They have huge constraints on both memory and CPU, so the code HAS to be optimized (it wasn't a choice) > > So, back in the day, Photoshop loaded in a matter of... **@devjc** · 16 upvotes > Hundred percent true **@iungertime** · 9 upvotes > I think the other big point here, under the The App Store Bottleneck but not mentioned.... it's a huge point. Profitability. > > When you put an app on the stores, if you want to make money and offer purchases you have to integrate with both stores, and they want to take 30% of your profit. That's a huge margin to lose. > > And if you want to build around that, you have to build a website anyways, and then you can't use the Google Play/Apple stores for purchasing. You have to figure out a redirection mechanism. > > This has been the #1 issue on apps with my clients. I've launched over 10 apps on the... **@shinabr2** · 5 upvotes > Your article is fine. Till now, nobody can answer my the question why do we need mobile app? **@devdailyadmin** · 4 upvotes > Usually because 98% of time you are trying to run the goddamn project as it never compiles. Yes I am looking at you react native ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Don’t just attend KubeCon \+ CloudNativeCon, Merge Forward your experience\!](https://daily.dev/posts/don-t-just-attend-kubecon-cloudnativecon-merge-forward-your-experience--l0rpp73x8) · CNCF · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Announcing H2 2026 KCDs](https://daily.dev/posts/announcing-h2-2026-kcds-m96goajm1) · CNCF · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Two months of Open Community Groups](https://daily.dev/posts/two-months-of-open-community-groups-asf52zhbs) · CNCF · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#mobile](https://daily.dev/tags/mobile), [#android](https://daily.dev/tags/android), [#ios](https://daily.dev/tags/ios), [#privacy](https://daily.dev/tags/privacy), [#app-store](https://daily.dev/tags/app-store) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/why-building-mobile-apps-is-so-much-harder-than-it-looks-mohxnizex)