The mobile front-end is the visual and interactive part of the application the user sees and works with. It usually resides on the device itself, or there is at least an icon representing the app that is visible on the home screen or is pinned in the application catalog of the device. The application can be downloaded from the platform app store, side-loaded directly onto the device, or can be reached through the device’s browser.

When a developer says they are a mobile application programmer, they are most often referring to this front-end part of the application and they are skilled in the languages and technologies that are used to create this front-end application.

Depending on the size of the team producing the app, there may be many different people involved in the design and development of the front-end mobile app. The team size can range from a single developer who does everything associated with building the app, to tens, hundreds, and more people with specialized skills who all may contribute to the production of the app. For example, there may be dedicated creative/graphics designers who are responsible for creating visual elements of the applications like icons, backgrounds, colors, themes and other parts of the app. The team may also have user experience and user interface designs who work on the layout of the components, how they interact with each other and the user. In the case of certain types of games, a team may include motion graphics developers and even physics engineers who develops engines that govern the physics of how components move in the app like a car in a racing game.