November 10, 2017
You’ve just had a fantastic app developed and are looking forward to watching the downloads rack up. If you’ve had an app developed by a freelancer or agency it’s time to check you actually have full ownership of your app.
Freelancers and agencies come and go. Relationships between client and developer can be great or go off the boil. If you’ve had an app developed you should be free to decide to take development in-house or find someone else to continue to make your app great.
Many companies who are new to software development don’t have the knowledge to ensure they’ve got everything they need to be in control of what happens next. If you aren’t sure then go through the following checklist:
- Do you have the full source code to the app?
- If the app uses any frameworks written by the development company do you have the source for these and a perpetual license to use it?
- If the app has a companion web service do you have all of the code to this?
- For an iOS app ideally it was published on your own Apple developer account. If not then you are at the mercy of the third party if you want to do updates. I recommend you get your own developer account setup and then have your developer transfer the app over to you.
- For Android you need to have the keystore and any needed passwords. The keystore is needed to sign an app and publish it on Google Play. Without the keystore you will never be able to issue updates to your app.
- For Android you should also make sure the app is published from your Google Play Console.
- If there are any third party assets, such as paid for fonts, images, etc - make sure that you are able to continue using these if you switch developers.
(If the above contains too much gobbledegook then get in touch with your developer and ask them to explain it to you. If they don’t want to then it might be time to get in touch with Apps On The Move).
It can sometimes be a battle to get all of the above - without which you’re a bit stuck! If you are an app based startup you need to make sure you fully own and have control of your most valuable asset.
If you’ve an app on the App Store or Google Play, and aren’t happy with your current developer or maybe they are no longer in business, then get in touch with Apps On The Move today! Call us on 0121 4525012 or send an email to matthew@appsonthemove.com.