7 reasons why you should rebuild your iOS apps from scratch
In the last six months, our iOS team has been focused on rebuilding our UI from the ground up and came up with a totally new version. Although it is never easy to stop your new feature roadmap and redesign your app from scratch, the effort can be surprisingly worth it. Here are 7 reasons why rebuilding your apps can make them better than ever:
1. Reduce technical debt
Our apps were more than 4 years-old with an outdated architecture and many of our iOS app’s instabilities were becoming unfixable due to this technical debt. Rebuilding our app gave us the chance to address these instabilities and make them easier to address going forward.
2. Improve development speed
Maintenance of the existing features was slowing us down. Implementing the new iOS 9 features, for example, took us 4x the time it should have. Technology ages fast, so ‘legacy’ architecture can hit you before you know it. Rebuilding actually improves our speed for new features and pays for itself in a short time.
3. Be compatible with latest Apple technologies
New form factor support was difficult and we were not using Swift. Compatibility with the latest technologies gives us the foundation to support new form factors in the fastest, easiest ways, just as Apple intended.
4. Reduce maintenance cost
Every feature had to be developed for iPhone AND iPad, while some features were still missing on iPad. By using standard Apple technologies such as Auto-Layout, we not only reduced our maintenance costs, but we also took advantage of each device’s unique properties.
5. Improve app quality
Let’s face it, Apple rolls out new technologies for a reason — to advance and improve the platform for developers and users. A clean refresh of our app means that we can take advantage of all the Apple built-in UI elements and dramatically improves responsiveness, architecture & stability.
6. Improve value in the Apple ecosystem
Following the Apple Human Interface Guidelines and using Apple-recommended technologies and app architecture allows us to contribute more value to the ecosystem. Apple’s technology provides a seamless user experience, so adopting the latest technologies is meaningful to both Apple and also to end users of all of its products.
7. Attract world-class engineers
The best iOS engineers want to work on the latest Apple technologies. By being at the cutting edge and being the innovator in our category, we can continue to attract the best engineers. At Dashlane, we believe that hiring the most talented people will deliver a 10x improvement in our product over time.
One bonus I did not anticipate is that going back to the basics would also act as a redemption; meaning that everybody had a chance to go back and hold themselves to a higher standard. I am happy to say that better code was produced in this revamp. Every person challenged themselves to raise the bar and now, nobody wants to lower it. It has become part of our culture to believe that we can do even better and to embrace that challenge instead of avoid it. So, consider that a bonus #8 reason to redesign your apps. Maybe all 8 reasons don’t apply to you, but if a couple do, then at a minimum you should consider going through a process similar to what we did.
Going through this exercise, we ended up doing great things like redesigning our app following the Apple HIG by the book, changing the architecture to better fit in the iOS environment, and using Auto-Layout to support different sizes from iPhone 5c to iPad Pro with the exact same experience. More importantly, we did all of this by using the latest Apple technologies such as Storyboard, Swift, and Spotlight search.
We’re excited to see what is going to be announced at the WWDC in June knowing that we will be able to stay on the cutting edge of Apple technologies without having to deal with major technical debt on our UI.In case you want to try our gorgeous new app, it’s available in the App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dashlane-password-manager/id517914548?mt=8.
