Keep your app working and compliant after launch

An app that was perfect at launch will not stay that way untouched. Apple and Google each ship a major operating system release every year, and both change permission prompts, background limits and privacy rules as they do. Stores also raise the minimum target version they accept, so an app that is not updated can be blocked from new installs or warned for removal.

Third-party libraries age too. Payment SDKs, analytics tools, map providers and push services release breaking changes, and old versions pick up known security flaws. Meanwhile your own backend and APIs change. A field renamed on the server can quietly break an older version of the app that thousands of people still run.

Maintenance is the routine that absorbs all of this. Without it, the cost does not vanish, it arrives later as a rushed fix at a bad moment, usually just before a deadline from a store.

We start with a one to two week audit, which includes the code, the dependency list, the build and signing setup, the store accounts and the backend. You get a written health report with the risks ranked and a recommended plan. If the app was built by another team, we clean up the build so releases are repeatable, and document how to build it.

After that the plan runs monthly. It includes monitoring and triage of crashes, a set allowance of hours for fixes and small features, upgrades for each new iOS and Android version, and store policy updates as they arrive. Security work follows the OWASP Mobile Application Security guidance, and we patch known vulnerabilities in libraries on a schedule.

Urgent issues, such as a crash on launch or a failing payment flow, have an agreed response time, and we publish a hotfix through a staged release so a mistake cannot reach every user at once. Larger changes, such as a redesign or a new module, are scoped separately and priced before work starts.

Compliance does not end at release. If your app collects personal data, the Personal Data Protection Law (PDPL) from SDAIA keeps applying: consent records, access and deletion requests and breach handling need to keep working as the app changes. We re-check them whenever a release touches data collection.

Apps in regulated sectors, such as finance, carry requirements from the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA), and staff apps in covered organizations may fall under the controls of the National Cybersecurity Authority (NCA ECC). We apply the patching and logging discipline those controls expect, and we flag items that need your compliance team rather than guess.

Hosting for the backend can stay in a Saudi cloud region in line with the cloud rules of the Communications, Space and Technology Commission (CST). As a guide, a typical small app needs a plan of a few hours each month. Apps with active development, several integrations or a large user base need a dedicated monthly allocation, which we size in the audit.