Developers’ Essential Footsteps for Designing Soil Monitoring and Protection Mobile Apps
Bogdan-Vasile Cioruța *
University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine of Cluj-Napoca, Doctoral School - Agronomy, 3-5 Calea Mănăștur, 400372, Cluj-Napoca, Romania and Technical University of Cluj-Napoca - North University Center of Baia Mare, Office of Informatics, 62A Victor Babeș str., 430083, Baia Mare, Romania and Technical University of Cluj-Napoca - North University Center of Baia Mare, Faculty of Letters - DSPP, 76 Victoriei str., 430072, Baia Mare, Romania and Technical University of Cluj-Napoca - North University Center of Baia Mare, Faculty of Science - DMI, 76 Victoriei str., 430072, Baia Mare, Romania.
Mirela Coman
University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine of Cluj-Napoca, Doctoral School - Agronomy, 3-5 Calea Mănăștur, 400372, Cluj-Napoca, Romania and Technical University of Cluj-Napoca - North University Center of Baia Mare, Faculty of Engineering, 62A Victor Babeș str., 430083, Baia Mare, Romania.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
It is known that mobile applications running on the Android operating system enjoy real appreciation among users around the world. These applications include those dedicated to soil monitoring and protection. Concerning the latter, we propose to discuss, step by step, mainly the phases and stages related to the configuration, design, development, implementation, testing, and validation of a mobile application with valences in the monitoring and protection of soil resources. Moreover, we analyzed from the very beginning and what are the main differences between the three possible work scenarios - native, hybrid, or web mobile application, to see what the requirements and features that we have to take into account in the development of the proposed application. In this sense, the work methodology is specific to the development of software applications, about which the results show us that the optimal option for the considered mobile application is a mix between native and hybrid development. Consequently, as a result of the analysis carried out on the entire development and life cycle of the application, it is found that our proposal for an application dedicated to soil monitoring and protection is more than welcome, the elements related to the configuration, design, development, its implementation, testing and validation being not only the prerogative of developers but also of users and customers.
Keywords: Mobile apps, MIT App inventor, development cycle, soil monitoring, protection