Your customers already do everything on their phones, and a competitor has just launched an app. Before you ask anyone for a quote, it helps to know what a European app needs that a sales brochure rarely mentions: consent that is designed and not bolted on, more than one language, both phone platforms, and accounts that stay yours. This guide goes through each, and how the work runs when the developers are in another country.
Consent and privacy by design
GDPR governs personal data across the EU, and an app can collect a great deal of it without anyone having decided to. The remedy is to decide, before a screen is drawn, what the app will collect and why. Go through this list with whoever builds it.
| What the app could ask for | Question to answer first | A lighter option |
|---|---|---|
| Location | Does the feature need the exact position, and all the time? | Ask only when the map opens, or let the user type a postcode |
| Notifications | What will be sent, and how often? | Ask after the first order, and say what the user will receive |
| Contacts and photos | Is access to the whole list needed? | Let the user pick one contact or one picture |
| Usage analytics | Which decision will these figures inform? | Count events without identifying the person, after consent |
| An account | Can someone try the app before registering? | Guest mode first, account at checkout |
Two design rules follow. The app should stay useful to someone who declines every optional permission. And each consent should be recorded, with a settings screen where it can be withdrawn. Before an app is listed, both stores make you fill in a declaration of what it gathers, so the table above doubles as preparation for that form. For what the law requires of your business, take legal advice.
Several languages in one app
- Every piece of text lives in a translation file, never inside the code, so a new language is added without rebuilding screens.
- The app follows the language of the phone and offers a manual switch.
- Layouts are tested in the longest language. A label that fits in English can overflow in German or Dutch.
- Dates, decimal commas and currency follow the country.
- The store listing, screenshots and notifications are translated too. A multilingual mobile app with an English-only listing will not be found by the people it was translated for.
iPhone and Android together
You cannot assume your customers carry one platform or the other, so plan for both from the start. Building them from one codebase means each feature reaches both on the same day, and there is one set of screens to translate. There are cases where separate native apps are worth the extra work; our guide to native and cross-platform apps explains when.
Store accounts in your name
The app should be published under developer accounts that your company opens on the App Store and Google Play, with the development team invited as members. The listing, the reviews, the installed base and the right to publish updates then belong to you. If the account belongs to the supplier, changing supplier can mean launching again from nothing. The same goes for the server the app talks to and the payment provider: your name, your billing details, our access.
Weekly builds, reviewed in your working day
With offshore app development, the weekly test build is what keeps both sides honest. Karachi is three hours ahead of Central European time in summer and four in winter, so a review call in your morning falls in our afternoon.
Discovery call
We write down who will use the app, what they do today and which systems it must connect to.
Clickable prototype
Every screen, consent screens included, approved on your own phone before development.
A build each week
A fresh test version is installed on your handset through Apple's and Google's tester programmes.
Review in your morning
A fixed weekly call to go through the build and agree changes.
Store submission
The finished app is sent for store review under your company's accounts.
Updates and support
Later fixes and new features are requested on a single WhatsApp line.
What to build first
A first version should do one job well. Use the MVP feature guide to shorten your list before requesting quotes: nothing moves the price more than the number of features.
Where Operix stands as a mobile app development company for Europe
Our app work is done in Karachi and delivered online; Operix has no European office. We have one European project so far, and it is an online store, not an app: Zoya Couture, for a Belgian fashion label, in Dutch, French and English. The rest of our portfolio is mostly in Pakistan and the UAE. If you want app developers in Europe who can sit in your office, or a studio with European apps to show, choose one nearer home. If a remote team working to a written scope suits you, the next step is small.
Read mobile app development in Europe and UI/UX design in Europe for what we build and how we design it, see how Operix serves Europe, and book a demo for an hour that falls in the European morning.
Questions people ask
Can an offshore company build an app that respects GDPR?
It can build what GDPR asks of an app: consent screens, minimal data collection and hosting in the region you choose. How the rules apply to a supplier outside the EU depends on your data, so agree it in the contract and take legal advice.
Do we need a separate app for each language or country?
No. One app can carry every language and switch by the phone's setting. Separate apps are worth considering only when the product itself differs between countries.
Who owns the app if we change supplier later?
You keep it, so long as your company, not the supplier, holds the store accounts, the repository and the server. Put that in the contract on day one.
How do we test an app that is built in another country?
Test versions are installed on your handset as the work goes on, one a week, and each is walked through with the developers on a video call. There is no big reveal at the end.
How much does an app for the European market cost?
Scope sets the price: how many screens and languages, which platforms, and what the app must talk to. Operix keeps prices off its website and quotes in writing once the scope has been discussed.