What impacts Mobile App download numbers?

According to a statement released by research firm Gartner recently, “Mobile app stores will see annual downloads reach 102 billion in 2013, up from 64 billion in 2012. Total revenue in 2013 will reach USD 26 billion, up from USD 18 billion in 2012.” The statement also predicted a steady growth in the upcoming years, while adding that free mobile apps constituted for 91% of the total application downloads this year. These constantly increasing number of downloads further encourage many enterprises to invest in mobile application development.

But with more and more companies venturing into mobile app business, the field has become highly competitive. Each enterprise, nowadays, has to implement a comprehensive mobile application development and promotion strategy to make its apps popular within a very short span of time. At the same time, the strategy also needs to identify the key technologies and market forces that affect the number of mobile app downloads.

Important Factors Affecting Mobile App Download

Performance and Speed of the App
Many reports have highlighted how the mobile app loading time can have a huge impact on the user experience as well as number of downloads. Often users avoid applications that take more time to load, or require them to take a higher number of actions. So the performance, efficiency and speed of the mobile application must be optimized, while making it more focuses to keep the users impressed and engaged.

Options to Get User Feedback
People love to use mobile apps that are more interactive. Most users also appreciate the feedback mechanism provided by applications. At the same time, many mobile users also look for constant consumer-centric improvements in the app. The right feedback mechanism will help you in gathering the user feedback and comments, and implement these suggestions to deliver improved user experience. Further, you must convey information about the updated version of the mobile application to users, and encourage them to download it to avail a set of fresh and innovative features.

Make the App Easy-to-Customize
Each user wants to customize the mobile application according to his personal preference. So you can easily make the application popular by incorporating features that enables users to personalize it by adjusting settings. It is also a good idea to allow users to change the color, font size, font type and privacy settings to add more value to the app, while delivering more personalized user experience.

Use Dedicated App Marketing Channels
Most mobile application stores allow application developers and resellers to promote their apps by availing customized advertisement options. However, you have to choose the marketing channel according to your mobile application. For instance, the iOS apps can be promoted through Apple’s iAD, whereas the Android apps will be promoted through Google’s AdMob. As these dedicated mobile application marketing channels are effective in reaching out to a large base of mobile users, you can use these advertisement options to get more mobile app downloads immediately after its launch.

Make the Application More Searchable
Many users gather information about mobile apps using online search engines. So the landing page of the application must be optimized to appear at the top of major search engine results pages. Similarly, the title, descriptions and feature list of the application also need to be optimized by using the most relevant keyword and phrases. You can always make your app more searchable to increase the number of downloads without relying on the app stores.

Create App Profiles
You can always optimize the exposure of a specific mobile application by creating profiles on directories, review sites and similar online platforms. It is also a good idea to submit the app to popular app reviewers, and request them to post app reviews. The app reviews will further help you in determining the flaws that affect user experience negatively. You can even use the data to increase app downloads by launching its updated version.

Track the App Constantly
The app promotion strategy must be modified and updated regularly to optimize the campaign. You must keep track of the app consistently using a set of tools and services. The constant tracking will make it easier for you to gather key information about the app including the audience, their age group and usage pattern. You can even consider using mobile app analytics to gather detailed information about the performance of your mobile app, along with identifying its flaws and weaknesses.

The number of mobile app downloads is also impacted by the current and upcoming trends in technology and user demand. At the same time, an enterprise also needs to update its app at regular intervals to increase the number of downloads.

You can hire mobile app programmers from top app development firms who can help you build mobile apps within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide mobile app development services. If you would like to discuss with an expert mobile app developer from our team, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.

Are your users quitting your app?

You can always launch a popular mobile app by keeping in mind the current trends in technology and customer demand. But you must remember that each customer has options to choose from a large collection of apps offering similar features and functionalities. Therefore, it becomes essential to optimize the efficiency and performance of your mobile app to beat completion. Many reports have highlighted that over 50% of mobile app users will exit if a system doesn't load within 5 seconds. So your development plan must consider some of the key measures make the mobile application work faster. You can even consider some of the most effective practices to make the app faster and popular.

4 Smart Ways to Make Your Mobile App Work Faster

1) Optimize the Images

Often the loading speed of a mobile application is impacted by the quality of images. In comparison to the images displayed on desktops, the mobile app images need to be smaller. Further, the images must be scaled to the right size to avoid several issues related to performance and memory. At the same time, you can further reduce the load on server by scaling the images to the size exactly required by the mobile device. The correctly sized images will make your app load faster by reducing the workload on the device as well as server.

2) Use JSON Web Services
The mobile application developers have options to create web services using several technologies like SOAP and XML, and JSON. Many experts have highlighted how the XML responses are much larger than JSON responses. As the mobile app normally do not display all fields on a page to users, you must ensure that the server is returning only the data required by the client. The workload on the server can be reduced drastically by specifying which fields will be included in a request. As entity tags (ETags) are a part of HTTP, you can even consider using these to deliver the content that are not updated or modified frequently.

3) Prioritize Client Requests
Similar to websites, a mobile app also needs to handle several client requests at a time. So you must differentiate client requests to reduce the app loading time. It is also important to prioritize the requests by implementing an efficient request queue. The request queue will further cancel the requests that are no longer relevant, or block users to perform a new action. At the same time, you also need to ensure that the connections are reused to idle cycles are used to respond to the next request. In case the network is not reliable, you can even consider queuing up a batch of client requests till the internet connectivity is back.

4) Look for Smart Ways to Implement Caching
Each app can be designed with cache to memory as well as to the file system using ETags. You can always consider a caching option that does not go over the network. If you decide to cache to the file system, it is a good idea to restrict the number of concurrent file accesses, along with deleting the irrelevant data. Further, you have to predict the upcoming user requests, while caching the responses already sent to the user. When the next set of user requests are already cached before the user requests, the user can access content at once. The smart caching implementation will further help you in delivering optimized user experience.

The mobile application must be tested thoroughly under different conditions and emulating maximum use behavior. Along with the development strategy, your testing plan for the application also needs to identify the flaws that increase its loading time. Before you take a decision to hire mobile application programmer for your app idea, it is highly suggested to evaluate the vendor’s expertise in not only product/app development but also testing.

We provide mobile apps development services. If you would like to know more about the expertise of our top mobile app developers, please visit Mindfire Solutions.

How Publishers Hope to Close the Mobile Revenue Gap

A number of recent reports have highlighted that websites, nowadays, get over 50% of their visitors through mobile platforms. With more and more users accessing internet on their handheld devices, it has become essential for enterprise to explore innovative ways to serve ads on mobile. However, many reports have also highlighted that mobile ad rates are still negligible in comparison to conventional rates of advertisement. Therefore, each publisher will find it a daunting challenge to close the mobile revenue gap. At the same time, each enterprise must make and implement a comprehensive mobile advertisement strategy by considering some important factors.

5 Effective Ways to Close the Mobile Revenue Gap

1) Target Multiple Mobile Platforms
Despite the rapidly growing popularity of Android, iOS still generates the maximum ad revenue. So the publisher needs to target the right mobile operating system. In addition to the popularity and market share of the mobile operating system, it is also important to consider its potential to generate ad revenue. An enterprise can further consider serving ads on multiple handheld devices and platforms to generate more revenue. However, no publisher can ignore some of the existing mobile platforms, because Symbian is still effective in generating adequate ad revenue despite being ditched by Nokia in favor of Windows Phones.

2) Personalize Display Ad Units
Similar to mobile platforms, revenue gap also exists between smartphones and tablets. So each publisher can close the mobile ad revenue by creating multiple display ad units according to user-consumption patterns. At the same time, publishers need to extend native platforms for individual handheld devices to easily serve smaller banner ads. Similarly, the animations and videos can be customized for individual mobile platforms to attract and engage the users.

3) Build Innovative Mobile Ad products
The quality and effectiveness of the mobile ad product will have a direct impact on the revenue. So the publishers can avail several benefits by building innovative mobile ad products. In addition to using the products as a medium to impress enterprises, the ad products can further focus on the needs of individual advertiser. The innovative mobile ad products will further encourage advertisers to allocate more funds to serve mobile ads.

4) Target a Higher Level of Customer Intimacy
Each enterprise wants to serve mobile ads by targeting the most relevant users. In addition to customizing the mobile ad products, it is also important for publishers to convince businesses about the effectiveness of mobile advertisement. Therefore, the publishers must explore innovative intelligent marketing techniques that enable them to serve customize mobile ads by targeting the most relevant users. However, no publisher can develop a high level of customer intimacy without putting some amount of time and effort. A publisher also needs to implement a strategy to gather information about the customers and advertisers from several reliable sources.

Despite the rapidly growing popularity of handheld devices, many organizations still allocate a large part of their advertisement budget for conventional print programs. Further, many organizations allocate funds for mobile advertisement from their overall digital marketing budgets. So the publishers must convince more and more organizations to allocate more funds for serving mobile ads. It is also important to run campaigns to make entrepreneurs realize the distinct advantages of mobile advertisement. With companies investing more funds in mobile advertisement campaigns, it will be easier for publishers to close the mobile ad revenue.

Each new mobile device comes with a set of additional and extended features. Also, handheld device manufacturers frequently integrate new technologies to deliver rich user experience. So the publishers must monitor the frequent changes in technology and user demand to close the mobile revenue gap in the long run.

You can hire developers from top mobile app development companies in India who can help you build mobile apps within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide mobile app development services. If you would like to discuss with an expert mobile app developer from our team, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.

Data-driven test automation is the best mobile application testing strategy

Using software for execution of tests as well as determining whether the predicted outcome and actual outcome are same or not on basis of those tests is known as test automation. Automation phases in software appears during the testing as well as implementation phase. Automated testing helps organizations accomplish the goal of adequately tested software as fast and thoroughly as possible. The coverage is also increased and the need for testing manually is reduced. Through this type of evaluation, minor defects which remain unexposed by manual testing are discovered. In fact, there are plenty of other advantages associated with this kind of evaluation, making it absolutely indispensable in the world of software. This is especially so for testing of mobile applications since it is a much more complicated process with the number of varying platforms along with operating systems of tablets, smartphones, etc.

Automated tests need proper execution environment; in this case it is an automation or testing framework which is an overall system for the automation of tests. The framework or support or work platform for the evaluations constitutes a set of concepts, practices as well as assumptions. The framework is application independent and can be easily expanded, maintained and perpetuated. Testing frameworks are of different types- modular, keyword driven, hybrid and data driven.

For data driven testing, data files supply the test's output and input values. Separate files store the expected output and input results. Although, the file is generally in tabular formats, it can be a CVS file, Excel file, DAO object, ODBC source, ADO object, etc. In such a framework variables are used for output verification values along with input values. All coded information related to navigating through evaluation status logs and application, reading of data files, etc are there in evaluation scripts. The test case remains encapsulated in information files and scripts remain a means for data delivery or a “driver”. Just the test information is contained in the data files of this type of evaluation.

Data-driven testing framework has a number of advantages like-

• The scripts can be created even during the ongoing development of applications.
• You can greatly reduce unnecessary duplication as well as redundancy of automated test scripts creation because records and files are used for verification of data along with input and also because of the modular type design.
• When there arises changes in the functionality, all you need to do is revise the script of the specific “Business Function”.
• Details as well as information like expected results, outputs or inputs are stored in form of text records which can be managed very conveniently.
• Errors can be handled better which results in more robust testing scripts. This is mainly because during the calling of scripts the functions return with “FALSE” or “TRUE” values, the entire thing is not aborted. Just creating a nice “recovery” program results in the execution of test scripts without needing any attendance.

Data-driven frameworks have certain disadvantages as well. For the automation tool, you need to be an expert on the scripting language; for each test case, many data-files are needed. In fact, evaluation plan information has to be re-entered by test engineer in varying data-files and on top of that the test plan has to be properly managed as well. However, the advantages of data-driven test automation outnumbers the disadvantages. With this type of testing, new test cases can be easily added just by adding new entry into information source. Also different sets of information help cover many aspects of the features of applications, thus increasing the test coverage. One script can test application functionality which makes this automation framework the best mobile application testing strategy.

You can hire software testing companies who can help you create and execute the perfect mobile app testing strategy.

We provide mobile app development as well as software testing services. If you would like to speak to expert mobile app developers from our team about the ways in which we go about doing app testing, please feel free to contact us. We will be glad to get back to you.

14 Must-See Mobile App Designs For Inspiration

Mobile apps along with responsive websites are constantly developing, functioning and looking better than ever, as expert designers come to the various advanced terms having the parameters involved. With the smarter look, even the smaller screens do not necessarily give poorer experiences. The good sign so far as apps designing is concerned is the restrictions of cellular devices as these help in focusing the minds of professional designers.

Latest Mobile App Development Trends

It seems to the users that the very best design really stands out, and does a great job in terms of understanding user behavior on the smaller devices. There are a number of instances that go certain way towards proving that mobile websites and apps can really communicate functionality clearly. Nowadays, application designers and developers have become more prominent in the field of extensible web. The markets are found to be flooded with Android as well as iOS apps which also earned considerable profits for several small development studios. In today's time, as the smartphone era is taken off with an immense buzz, app developers and designers are in high demand.

Here are a great collection of 15 mobile app UI designs for Inspiration. Some of these are especially designed for iOS, which is considered as the powerhouse of the modern smartphone market.

1. Behance: The Behance is a creative portfolio android app and it is now available for beta testing. It offers easy content accessibility with huge project previews.

2. Dribbble: Now browsing has become easier with this android application. It is easy to explore and search in your mobile device.

3. Location Finder: It enables users to browse their phonebook contacts saved by their locations. It also helps in knowing location of outgoing or Incoming calls or any mobile number (at City level/State/Country). It also displays the time of the last interaction with that phone number.

4. Task Manager: This Android application keeps users focused, organized and more productive. task Such application helps you schedule the tasks in proper way while improving the performance of your cell phone.

5. Task Tracking: Task Tracker is an open source and free to use project management application which minimizes overhead to maximize productivity as well as accountability.

6. Slide Concept: Mobile Slides concept is a complete solution to the presentation needs. It supports retina display in new iPad.

7. Fashion App: This App offers a lot of innovative ideas or best combinations for the latest styles.

8. Music App: With such apps it is easy to play, share and discover your favorite music on Android and the web.

9. Room App: It offers free drawing or predefined shapes of a room shape with touch or S-Pen.

10. Portfolio App: With the help of this application you can show, add or organize your photographic art work quickly and with ease.

11. Fantasy Leagues App: This application provides users with all the things they need to manage or help their fantasy football team via mobile site related to official Fantasy Premier League. Various other things required for making all crucial tactical decisions are also offered by this app.

12. Live Messages App: With these apps you can have live experience anywhere by tracking or comparing your achievements, connecting with your live friends. You can also review various latest games.

13. Weather App: Android weather apps offer the accurate and quick weather forecast. It searches your address to locate cities and provide the current weather condition, current temperature, wind speed, direction as well as humidity along with ten, five days or hourly weather forecast.

14. Alarm Clock App: The digital alarm clock as well as timer apps are meant to solve all your timing needs.

All these apps testify to the mobile design platform that indeed offers some advanced features for inspiration. Presumably, all these apps as well as design features would definitely work wonders, provided the user experience mirrors designing. Check out new mobile applications, especially iPhone designs that inspire app industry to go for flat design. With enhanced market accessibility, you can simply get and enjoy any of the really beautiful models of flat mobile app designs.

You can hire programmers from top mobile app development companies in India who can help you build mobile apps within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide iPhone app development services. If you would like to speak to one of our expert mobile app developers, please reach out to us at Mindfire Solutions.