Myths and misconceptions among mobile developer community

Mobile web access is rising at a fast pace; according to latest findings, the revenue generated from mobile apps may exceed $70 billion by 2017. Such potential has prompted companies to give more emphasis towards the development of mobile apps. With this urgency, many software and tools have come to the rescue of the developers. However, since the experience that these developers have is limited, many myths as well as misconceptions have crept up in the development community. Here’s taking a look at some of the myths and misconceptions that are prevalent and should be debunked immediately.

Choosing the Right Mobile Development Company - Few Measures

There are a lot of companies in the market that regularly come up with mobile apps on a regular basis. All of these companies will very naturally claim to be the best in the business. While on one hand, this may provide a lot of options to choose from, on the other, this may leave a you confused and you may end up choosing one that is either too much expensive for you or falls short of your requirements. However, when it comes to choosing one from amongst them, it is imperative to follow a certain process to make sure that the investment is justified and you have got exactly what is required, and that also at a reasonable price at the end of the day. Let us discuss the procedure of choosing the right mobile development company.

The first and foremost thing that you need to look into is the development fee that the business will charge. In fact, cost is the basic parameter to eliminate businesses and narrow down the search. However, this does not imply that the business organizations, which will charge lesser price, will do a better job. The bottom line is that it is important to opt for a company that charges reasonable fees and get the job done by experienced developers.

It is important to ask for references from them. A handful of references will help in consulting with the past and present customers of the development house, to get an idea about the service they provide. It also provides an idea regarding the competence of the developers of the business organization in question.

The next thing that is required to be looked into is the venue where the company carries out its developmental work. There are a number of businesses that use overseas developers for reduction of development cost. This at times is associated with a substantial amount of risk as these foreign developers often run way behind the schedule. To add to the woes, there are communication issues due to time difference, language problem, and other reasons. Quality also at times takes a back seat in case developments are outsourced.

Find out the platforms that the company has specialized. There are few businesses, which are better while dealing with iPhones. Some others are more competent with Android.

Opt for the ones that help in deployment of apps. A company might be outstanding in developing the best app, but it will be of no use to you if you do not have access to it. Hence, looking for a developing company that helps in deployment of app is most crucial.

Bank on experience. Do not put your money on newcomers, especially when dealing with a huge project involving a huge amount. It is crucial to opt for a development house that has a substantial amount of experience in similar kind of projects. Access their portfolio to have an idea about the extent of experience they have, when it comes to development of similar kinds of apps.

Opt for a company you can build a sound relationship with. Development of mobile app is not a once-in-a-lifetime activity. Apps generally undergo multiple evolutions, evaluations, as well as cycles that constantly depend upon the feedback of clients. Hence, opt for developing companies that will be easily accessible and will stick with you all along the product life cycle and will not become inaccessible, once they are through with the development and hosting of the app.

Do not get lured too much by price. It is best not to opt for the ones who provide you cheap services. On the other hand, it’s not that those who that charge exorbitant fees need to be summarily avoided. It should be the quality of service and experience that should be the determining factors.

If you are not too much confident about your own judgment prowess, it is safer to consult a specialist, who will be able to guide through the entire process of selecting the right mobile developing company.

You can hire developer from top mobile app development India companies who can guide you in detail about the benefits of both approaches.

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Cross-platform Mobile App Development – Selecting the Perfect Platform

An organization can always enhance the popularity of a mobile app by targeting multiple operating systems at a time. The rapidly growing popularity of mobile platforms further encourages many enterprises to invest in cross-platform mobile application development. A developer can simply write the code once, and deploy the same to multiple mobile platforms. Most organizations build cross-platform mobile apps by targeting hugely popular operating systems like iOS, Android and Windows. But the developers often have to address the challenges related to hardware capabilities and software stack of individual mobile operating systems. The challenges can be easily addresses by picking the perfect cross-platform mobile application development platform. However, an organization has to consider several factors to choose the best platform.

How to Pick the Perfect Cross-Platform Mobile App Development Platform?

Define the User Experience

Each mobile app must target the right audience to become popular within a shorter span of time. So your choice of mobile app development platform will be impacted by the audience you want to target. Once you identify want your potential customers expect, it will be easier for you to choose the right tools and framework to achieve higher engagement rate by targeting multiple mobile operating systems. After defining the user experience, you can choose the right framework that optimizes the look, feel and performance of the application on each mobile platform.

Familiarity of the Platform

Most cross-platform application development platforms are built for scripting languages. So the developers familiar with HTML, JavaScript and CSS can easily user these frameworks. You can help your team in migrating from website and internet application development to mobile application development by choosing a platform that is more familiar to them.

Look for Powerful Plug-ins

Widely used cross-platform mobile development frameworks like Appcelerator's Titanium and Adobe's PhoneGap come with easy to use plug-ins. These plug-ins allow developers to use a variety of services or tools, along with accessing common links to similar APIs. The programmers can further use the plug-ins to communicate with the mobile device’s cameras, location sensors or accelerometers without writing lengthy lines of the code. So you must opt for a platform that provides customized plug-ins to developers.

Explore Future Prospects

A number of recent reports have highlighted the constantly growing number of dead apps in various app stores. So you must use the latest and futuristic technologies to extend the lifespan of the mobile application. It is always important to choose a platform that supports the latest technological advances in the industry. At the same time, the platform must enable developers to use futuristic technologies like HTML5 and XML. The feature will make it easier for them to include new features and functionalities without writing lengthy lines of code.

Option to Adopt Enterprise Cloud Services

Within a shorter span of time, Cloud services have become hugely popular among both individual and enterprise users. Often developers have to write lengthy and complex code to integrate the enterprise and Cloud services. But some innovative cross-platform mobile app development platforms make it easier for programmers to integrate Cloud services in a quick and hassle-free way. For instance, they can simply code an Exchange integration once to make the mobile app work on multiple mobile operating systems without requiring any additional security methods.

Evaluate the Pros and Cons of Each Platform

The cross-platform mobile application development frameworks help organization in enhancing deployment speed, while reducing the development cost. Further, an organizer has option to choose from several open source and commercial development tools and frameworks. Often these frameworks required developers to use prescribed tools and suites, which can make the coding and rendition slower. There are also chances that the developers have to learn new tools to build the mobile app. So you must not forget to evaluate the pros and cons of each platform according to the type of cross-platform mobile app you want to build.

Google, Microsoft and Apple frequently update their mobile operating systems by including innovative features and functionalities. So each organization must use the most recent version of the cross-platform mobile app development platform to deliver richer user experience.

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

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Building Highly Addictive & Viral Mobile Apps

Thanks to the huge popularity which is growing with every passing day, the future of mobile apps market looks extremely bright, especially when it comes to making a considerable revenue earning. However, this also gives rise to the necessity of expanding different strategies of digital marketing. Naturally, a sizeable amount of time along with effort are been nowadays spent, with the view to develop various types of mobile apps that are worth downloading.

The designs need to be exceptional

The apps need to be designed from “inside out”. That means, the designs need to be such that they will embrace all the potentials along with the limitations. The concept of designing or developing mobile apps is absolutely different from designing and developing apps meant for traditional desktop computers or laptops.

The design needs to be drawn on real life

The applications need to be designed in an intuitive way so that they fit in the real life requirements. However, when it comes to fulfilling the requirements, the best mobile apps not only fulfil the physical requirements of the modern day to day life but also satisfy the psychological needs as well, so that the customers get a psychologically gratifying experience.

The designs need to be created at first by clearly defining the concept that they are going to focus on, and then follow it up by coding or making the illustration. The key to success in creating addictive as well as compelling apps is the context that is created. The concept of the context must be drawn from the comparable objects of real life along with the day to day interactions of various kinds. The idea is to engage as many things as possible that are familiar to the users or audience.

Keep things simple and straight

It is imperative to keep things as simple and straight as possible while designing. According to the experts, this will help to avoid designing something that is not needed at all. Great apps are those which stay focused on things or ideas that are absolute necessary.

Focus on one thing to excel

Addictive and viral apps are those which are single-purpose in nature and come up with certain functional features that help the users in their daily activities without any complications whatsoever. There are a number of funny as well as quirky apps available in the market but the credit lies in creating an app that would solve the common daily problems. That's what makes an app addictive as well as viral! Hence, the key to success is thinking about the idea behind designing the app instead of the app itself.

Offer incentives to the users

The apps need to provide some kind of value added service to the users. That means in order to go viral, they need to go beyond being mere mobile websites. They need to offer better as well as quicker services, in such a way that users can get whatever information they need at their finger tips right when they need. It is this which makes an app popular. It should help people to interact with the others, provide notifications about users' actions and so on. Rewarding users for their actions or behaviours proves to be highly addictive. Popularizing those rewards to the social media can help an app to go viral.

Being Unconventional

This is another way of making an app addictive. Thinking differently, making an app that is quite different from the others are the best ways to make an app highly popular so much so that it goes viral.

There are a number of other ways in which an app can be made popular. The entire thing depends upon the designer, the developer and their imaginations or innovations. They can incorporate newer as well as unique ways to make an app adorable. The bottom line is that the app in question needs to have unparalleled quality, visibility, usability along with stability that make all the difference.

You can hire mobile app programmers with solid experience in app development who can help you build engaging mobile apps within allocated budgets and time schedules.

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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.

4 Ways to Make Your Mobile Website Feel like a Native App

With more and more users accessing the web on their mobile devices, it has become essential for webmasters to optimize their website for popular mobile devices. Many organizations even launch a distinct mobile version of their website to deliver improved user experience. But may reports have highlighted how mobile users expect an app-like experience while accessing websites on their smartphones and tablets. In comparison to web applications, native apps are faster.

Further, the buttons respond to users in an instant, along with rendering the images and animations. So the speed and performance of a mobile website must be optimized to deliver app-like experience. However, the developers also have to incorporate certain features to make the website look and feel like native mobile applications. At the same time, they also need to use innovative technologies like XML and HTML5 to make the website accessible to the user regardless of his choice of mobile web browser.

4 Ways to Provide a Native App-like Feel to Your Mobile Website

1) Include Momentum Scrolling
Most developers find it a daunting challenge to create scrollable container on the mobile site that is both fast and responsive. But the iOS 5+ and Android 3+ make it easier for developers to create an efficient scrollable container using the overflow-scrolling property. As the momentum scrolling feature is native, it will make the mobile website feel like a native app. Also, the property can be enabled simply by adding it to a scrollable container. However, the property needs to be adjusted according to the version of iOS or Android. It also needs to be tested thoroughly to identify and fix performance flaws.

2) Make the Buttons More Responsive
Often the buttons of a mobile website affects app-like experience negatively. Most developers leave the default touch state of buttons and hyperlinks unaltered. It results in the mobile website requiring more time to respond to the initial tap of the user. So the performance of a mobile website can be optimized simply by activating state on mobile devices. The state will further contribute towards the button responding to the visitor tap in an instant, while indicating visually that the some action is being taken. At the same time, the mobile web browser will not put timeout, and ensure that the action is being executed by the user’s initial tap.

3) Use Innovative Hardware-Accelerated Animations
The use of animation also affects the responsiveness of a mobile website. Most native apps are designed with features to take advantage of the device’s hardware graphic acceleration features. But the websites often use JavaScript-based animations that make them slower. The latest mobile web browsers allow developers to use hardware-accelerated CSS3 animations. With the innovative option, developers can easily add animations to deliver an app-like experience. However, it is also important to check the CSS3 animations thoroughly to ensure that they are not affecting the speed and responsiveness of the mobile website.

4) Harness Natural Gestures
The native mobile applications are also effective in harnessing the natural gestures associated with the usage of touch devices. Most app developers take advantage of these gestures to optimize user experience. But mobile website developers often fail to capitalize on the natural gestures. Instead of relying only on tapping objects, the website developer must implement these natural gestures like pull to refresh, side to side swiping, and long press. Most mobile web browsers implement the gestures in distinct ways. So the mobile website must be tested to ensure that it is availing the full advantage of gestures.

An enterprise can also consider launching hybrid mobile apps to bridge the gap between native apps and mobile websites. The hybrid apps can avail some of the features of the native as well as web applications, while taking advantage of device features. Further, these can be downloaded by the users from the app stores, and accessed using the browser embedded in the app.

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 application development services. If you would like to hire mobile app developers from us, we would be glad to assist you at Mindfire Solutions.

10 Things You can Do to Let People Know about Your New Mobile App

If you have developed a new mobile application, it is obvious for you to expect numbers of downloads per day. Unfortunately, such is not the case always and a lack of marketing and promotion of the applications is one of the major reasons behind their unpopularity in the long run. Now, it is for this reason that marketing an application in the proper way is as necessary as creating it in the desirable manner. So, what are the ways that you can market an app and most essentially, create it in a way that automatically draws the attention of the users? Here is a list of them:

1. Go for App Store Listing and App Store Optimization

The application stores work well in driving downloads of a variety of apps. Optimizing the application requires you to follow three steps. First, you need to understand the particular keywords as well as the amount of competition that each of them has. This should be followed by the creation of a professional logo, screen shots, effective descriptions along with keyword rich titles to enable the application grab the instant attention of the people. Lastly, allow it to be as engaging as possible. Getting good reviews for the same is also an essential part of app store optimization that ultimately leads to an effective marketing of the same.

2. Articulate a Story

The story behind any application or product is of particular interest for the people. Emphasize upon telling a story and this will help the prospective users to get involved in a greater way. For the gaming based ones, the background story is extremely important while for the non- gaming ones, delineating the reasons behind their creation can be an effective way of marketing the same.

3. Using the QR Codes

When you are creating mobile apps, it is obvious that your target audience would be the Smartphone generation. Consequently, the QR codes come up as one of the best as well as the most recognized means of advertising. The codes can be added to the websites, business cards, brochures, storefront window and so on.

4. Choose the Right Timing

The time of the launching of the app is very crucial. To let the application get the maximum exposure, you should launch it at a time when there is high possibility of a momentum getting started. Synchronizing the PR, banners and blog posts is important in this regard.

5. Social Sharing from the Application Itself

Any application will include features that the users would like to use as well as share with the people they know. Enable those features that allow the users to share content, play games and so on. Social sharing is bound to affect the number of downloads of the application.

6. Build a Website for the Apps

A website for the app is like a home for the same and the advantage is that you can explain so many things about it in the page without the necessity of getting restricted to the specified description or marketing page. While the website you create should be unique and with a desirable landing page, site promotion techniques like SEO, link exchanges and so on can be facilitated to lead to a higher exposure.

7. Go for Efficient Public Relations Management

Effective PR is necessary not just with respect to the marketing of the applications but in every field. Enlisting the assistance of a public relation professional can be of real help. A press release can be drafted and it should include all the essential information about the app. Also consider sending emails to the blog owners.

8. Go for Premium Apps

The reason why most applications in the app store is free is that these are easier enough to be promoted. Eventually, the paid apps are never found to have a good ranking in the app store. Making the application free to download allows it to be more competitive in search and attract higher number of downloads.

9. Consider Mobile Advertising

Mobile apps can be advertised by means of PPC campaigns too and for this, you need to put the ads on the mobile devices. Even Google allows target users to see mobile ads while they are searching from their mobile devices.

10. Hire the Assistance of the Mobile App Marketing Agencies

There are various recognized mobile app marketing agencies accessible out there to help you gain the desired exposure for your application. You can certainly consider hiring their services for the best results.

Following the above- mentioned tips for marketing the mobile applications goes a long way in promoting the app among the target market and beyond in the best- possible way while also justifying the efforts put into the creation of the same. While speaking to top mobile app development companies, it does not hurt to have a vendor who is aware of app-marketing as well.

Expert mobile app development India teams can help build mobile applications for you. If you would like to speak to one of our expert mobile app developers, please reach out to us at Mindfire Solutions.