The techniques and procedures involved in building software for small, wireless computing devices such as smartphones and other hand-held devices are referred to as mobile application development.

Mobile application development, like web application development, stems from more traditional software development. One significant difference is that mobile apps are frequently designed particularly to take advantage of the unique features of a given mobile device. For example, a game app could be created to take advantage of the iPhone’s accelerometer, or a mobile health app could be written to take advantage of the temperature sensor on a smartwatch.

Today, the two most prominent mobile systems are Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. Apple phones and tablets come equipped with critical software, including a full web browser.