Have you have ever thought to yourself how much time do we spend using our mobile applications? A study says on an average people spend about three hours a day using their mobile applications. That is not surprising, after all, we do almost all daily tasks using these mobile applications – messaging, booking a ride, shopping online, playing games, banking, dating, etc. Smartphones and mobile applications have today become an integral part of our lives and society.

This pretty much says why a business needs to adopt mobile applications to lure and engage customers. These apps can help businesses drive more customers and already many companies are soaring high in the app store and play store.

Top app-based businesses like Swiggy, Zomato, AirBnB, Amazon, Uber, etc have adopted the mobile app trend and have become one of the largest companies in India and aboard. In India, this trend influenced many mobile app development companies in Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune, and Delhi to develop advanced apps for their clients to engage their customers and increase their business revenue. Irrespective of what business you are in, you should get a mobile application to simplify or ease the business operation.

Taking so much about the importance of having a mobile application for your business, let us look at five key factors that can make or break your dream application:

Invest in research

If you want to build an application that soars high in the app skies and strikes an engaging cord with your target audiences, then you should invest a lot of time in research before you start planning. Research the current trends in the app market and study about the upcoming or expected trends in the industry. Dig deeper and gain insights into the consumer demands and preferences. With this in-depth study and research, you should be able to analytically understand what kind of apps are popular among smartphone users.

Also, spend some time understanding the applications from the user perspective. Download the most popular apps, and get a first-hand experience of them. This shall help you understand the user experience, the interface, and the functionality of the app. Yet another way to learn through user’s perspectives are the reviews left on the app store and play store. You can find more about the loopholes and the best features here. This research will enable you a great foundation to work on.

Make clear objectives

An aimless app is just like an arrow in the dark – you don’t know where you are headed. Without a definite aim or objective, your application will surely be a failure. So get it right to the T! You can not afford to miss this. You should know why are you building a mobile application? Is it to engage your audience? Is it to increase revenue? Or is it to help people?

Without understanding the aims and objectives a mobile app, it will be impossible to – zero down the features, create a platform strategy, design UX/UI and ultimately develop an app. So get the aim right as that is the soul to your app.

Know your target audience

The most crucial step, for this, decides the success or failure of your mobile application. Therefore, identifying the right target audience plays a vital role in developing a mobile application and its features expansion. Put some time in doing primary research through surveys and interviews followed by studying the online forums to understand your market and audience. As all applications are here to solve some of the other problems, the ‘target audience’ should never be a work of guess.

You know who your target audience research is ready when you can answer these questions – Where are they located? What is their age group? What is their gender? Which income level do they belong to? What interests them? What is their occupation? What smartphone do they use? etc. Answers to these will help you create audience persona to visualize the needs of your audience sets. This step further strengthens your foundation, so be clear about who your target audience is.

Choose the right platform

Currently, there are three most popular platforms for smartphone applications. They are – android, iOS, and Windows. While android is largely common and there are many users to it, it surely can help you get a large number of downloads. But do keep a note on if your TG uses an android? Yes, you got that right. The platform strategy and selection depends on where the TG lies.

The best strategy that most app developers follow is to start with one platform, wait for the results, gather insights, and then move to a different platform. Choosing the right platform completely depends on the target audience, use, features, and pricing. Once the strategy and budget are ready you can develop a native or a hybrid mobile application.

Get the features right

The feature is the only factor that can make you stand out in the crowd. The more unique, the better. Needless to say, that your mobile application should be innovative, creative, and have easily accessible features. With everyday advancements in the smartphones and mobile application industry, it is now possible to integrate the features of smartphones in mobile applications. Adding good features enhances user experience, but adding too many features can make your application complex and slow. Therefore, always keep only the necessary, leave the rest.

The above-mentioned factors are crucial in developing an app that helps your brand successfully connect with your user base. When done right, a mobile app can help you build brand presence, convert loyal customers into brand evangelists, and increase profit margins. As one of the top mobile application development companies in India, Goodworklabs boasts an enviable track record in delivering quintessential web and mobile applications. For more information, contact our technical experts today.

These key factors are crucial in developing a mobile application that helps your brand reach, grow, and connect at a deeper level. If you follow the golden rules to the T, you are bound to reinforce your brand presence and increase your ROI by adding more customers. GoodWorkLabs, is the leading mobile application developer based out of Bangalore, India, and the San Francisco Bay Area, US. Should you require any help in building a mobile application, then reach out to us at +91- 9863077000 or contact@goodworklabs.com.

Hybrid Mobile App Development

In 2019, the number of mobile phone users is estimated to reach 4.68 billion.  Hence, this is enough reason to stress the importance of having an online presence in the form of mobile apps. Now the next and major question is which approach to choose for app development, native or hybrid?

We understand that picking the perfect mobile development approach is a tough task. That’s why in this post, we have tried to clear the confusion by laying down circumstances in which Hybrid app development makes sense.

Why is Hybrid mobile app development more preferred?

As stated by the Ionic Developer Survey 2017, in which 13000 developers participated, 32.7% of developers are expected to completely abandon native app development for Hybrid app development. Also, there was a 700 percent decrease in developers developing exclusively with native tools.

Why Hybrid mobile app development outscores Native mobile app development?

Hybrid app development utilizes web technologies such as HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS while providing access to native platform features. The best examples of successful Hybrid mobile applications are Instagram, Basecamp, Yelp, and Uber.

These apps can access the native features like camera, contacts and at the same time, it runs on both Android and iOS.
With the advent of Hybrid mobile app frameworks such as PhoneGap, Ionic, and React Native, the options in mobile app development have diversified.

There are sizeable advantages for opting hybrid mobile app development.

To start with, the talent pool of Hybrid App developers is bigger than the native app developers, thus making Hybrid app development a cheaper venture than native apps. And you already know that every penny saved is a penny earned.

With Hybrid app development, multiple app platforms can be targeted without the requirement of maintaining multiple code bases. This, in turn, reduces the time to market and enhances the outreach to the users.

The following are key benefits of using Hybrid application development:

• Fast track development: single code base for all the platforms
• Easy to test and implement changes and scale to other platforms
• Inexpensive in all the aspects
  

Just like how every coin has two sides, there are some cons of opting for hybrid mobile app development as well. Consider this as well before opting for hybrid application development.

Disadvantages of hybrid mobile app development

Since a single code is used for all the major app platforms, it is difficult to match up with the performance of native apps. There are also some performance issues because of some device constraints in Android and iPhone. 

With the tech world evolving at a drastic rate, it will be difficult for organizations to stay updated with the latest features and hardware capabilities when they choose the hybrid framework. It is both a time consuming and cumbersome process altogether.

Why choose Hybrid App development?

Hybrid app development solves the chief purpose of fast-track development and a quick launch in the market. The added advantage is that it is inexpensive and there is no functional or visual difference to users.

Furthermore, hybrid apps are perfect for startups who desire a quick lane to market. Quick prototyping helps in getting an early feedback, so that unnecessary expenses on development can be avoided later. All you need is to build a Hybrid MVP and test your concepts, if it satisfies all the standards, move ahead with developing the Hybrid app or migrate back to the native app.

It is a general perception that hybrid app development has several constraints with custom features and that developers can only use the features that can be wrapped in a native container. But, the real fact is Hybrid app can cover up to 90% of standard features.

Also, the possibility to create something new with the modules already written in native for specific platforms is very high.

Another great usage of hybrid development is when you need an inner ‘corporate’ purpose app like conference apps, events and such. These applications are distributed via links and not uploaded on the Google Play or App Store.

How to decide whether Hybrid is the right choice for your business?

There is no clear choice when it comes to native or hybrid. No matter which option you pick you will have to make certain compromises. Your decision should obviously be based on your requirements, skills of developers, and budget.  Also, there are few mandatory questions that you must ask yourself before arriving at any decision.

Do you have strict budget constraints? If yes, then the hybrid app development will solve your purpose. On the contrary, if your app requires a lot of unique features in your app then native app development should be your first choice.

Summing-up

The decision of choosing the right approach for app development is not an easy one. It is like choosing between an iPhone or Android phone. The best approach to choose is to make a list of priorities and then test both app development approaches for appropriateness.

Also, the choice of app development approach varies with the project complexity. With all the pros and cons of hybrid and native app development in mind, you can make an educated decision.

If you would like a FREE consultation on the best approach for your App development needs, then drop us a quick message here

What are Progressive Web Apps

Progressive web applications (PWAs) can offer user functionalities such as push notifications, working offline, and device hardware access and still load like regular web pages or websites. 

PWA apps are reliable, fast and engaging. The app should load regardless of the network condition even if the device is offline or has a slow connection. The app must be fast and give prompt responses to the users. Progressive web applications should provide user experience equivalent to the native apps. For example, PWA can use device capabilities and show custom icons to ensure quick load time.

In simpler terms,  PWA is a website with mobile experiences that is more pleasant than the normal mobile-optimized website. It functions almost like a native app with following jotted features

1. Offline support
2. Faster Loading
3. Security

Also, PWAs are not platform-specific and can be built with any framework. They don’t revolve around specific technologies or frameworks.

Let’s go over the core principles of Progressive Web Applications to gather a deeper and better understanding:

1. Reliability or Offline support

Regardless of the network status, PWAs are expected to launch. This can be achieved by using client-side proxies written in JavaScript i.e. Service Workers. PWAs should perform at an optimum level even in slow network conditions. Regardless of bandwidth and latency, the navigation inside the app should be smooth. In such scenarios, service workers help by caching lazy-loaded routes.

2. Performance

This is the most crucial metric for any web application. As reported by Google, if a site takes more than 3 seconds to load, 53% of users abandon it. The probability of users bouncing back increases by 32% if the page load time goes from 1 to 3 seconds. Similarly, if the page load time prolongs from 1-5 seconds, the probability of the bounce increases by 90%.

3. Rail model

For measuring the performance, the performance engineers at Google have developed a universal model called RAIL. By researching human interactions with computer programs a user-centric model RAIL was created. The RAIL model can be applied to all user-oriented software program like websites, desktop applications, mobile applications, and video games.

RAIL is basically an acronym for describing key performance metrics:
Respond, Animate, Idle, and Load.

This means that the response to user input should be in 100 ms, all the animations should run in 60fps, idle time should be maximized, and load time for displaying some content should be under 1 sec and become interactive under 5 secs.

4. Engagement

The essence of PWAs is that it should have the feel and the capabilities of native apps. PWAs can be opened without any browser controls on all major mobile platforms and can be installed on the user’s home screen. On desktop platform, PWAs can be added to docks and taskbar. Also, shortcuts can be added to the desktop.

Benefits of Progressive Web Apps (PWA)

Progressive web apps come with a package deal of some lucrative features.
1) Native apps fall in the size range of 200MB or more, while PWAs are way too light and can range in KBs.
2)  Native platform codes are not required
3)  The cost of acquisition is very low as it is easy to convince a user to visit a website than to install an app to get a first time experience.
4) Fewer efforts are required to build and release updates
5) Better support for deep links than the app store applications

The PWA battle: Apple vs Google

Did you know? Apple App Store generates 10 times more revenue per device in comparison to the Google Play Store.

Reason: Apple App Store has a strict manual review process and charges $100 per license to upload to the store. Whereas Google has a very relaxed review process which is automated and charges $25 per upload to the store.

Google aggressively promotes PWAs while Apple lags behind in the PWA support. The introduction of ServiceWorkers was very late and even today they don’t support or prompt users to add the app to the home screen.  While Apple focuses on their ecosystem, Google focuses on providing services to all devices.

Emerging markets

PWAs have a great emerging market and can make a major impact on the next billion users. Most internet users are traced via smartphones from regions like China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, and Nigeria. These regions hold a vital future for PWAs as they require 10x less data transfer.

The comparison of platform feature

There is no doubt that the web platform has advanced quite a lot in recent times but it still doesn’t provide support for basic capabilities of mobile apps. 

On iOS device, push notifications are not supported while on Android push notifications are fully supported. On desktop devices, notifications are only received when they are open.

There is an additional limitation such as USB, NFC, and Bluetooth are only supported on the Chrome browsers. Also, the device authentication is difficult as there is no way to authentic users on the basis of FaceID, TouchID, or Fingerprint on the web.

Final Words

In the light of above facts, obviously, some of the key features are missing in Progressive web apps. Still, the goals set by the progressive web apps can be followed and applied in native apps, especially those apps which are built using web technologies like React Native.

Go here if you would like to build your own progressive web application.

And Along Came Android

Android is a software system package and UNIX operating system based mostly OS for mobile devices like pill computers and smartphones.

The goal of the project is to form a self-made real-world product that improves the mobile expertise for users.

What is Open Handset Alliance (OHA)?

It’s a consortium of 84 companies such as google, samsung, AKM, synaptics, KDDI, Garmin, Teleca, Ebay, Intel etc.

It was established on 5th November, 2007, led by Google. It is committed to advance open standards, provide services and deploy handsets using the Android Platform.

Why Is Android  So Popular?

• It is open-source.
• Anyone can customize the Android Platform.
• There are a lot of mobile applications that can be chosen by the consumer.
• It provides many interesting features like weather details, opening screen, live RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds etc.
• It provides support for messaging services(SMS and MMS), web browser, storage (SQLite), connectivity (GSM, CDMA, BlueTooth, Wi-Fi etc.), media, handset layout etc.

Now that we know and understand a bit about Android, we would love to showcase a few amazing Android features you might have not probably tried.

1. Use your smartphone camera’s ability to detect infrared light to determine if your remote control’s batteries are dead.

“Our eyes can’t see it, but digital cameras surely can. A smartphone’s camera is indeed sensitive to IR radiation, and if you want to try it for yourself, just use a common IR remote control. The infrared beam emitted when a button is pressed will show as white or purple light in the viewfinder of your camera app. You can use this trick to check if a remote control’s batteries are dead when it stops working.”

2. Field Mode: *3001#12345#*

The USSD protocol allows you to access hidden features you didn’t know about right from your smartphone’s dialer. But there is some trickiness you’ll need to know about.

Type *3001#12345#* into your phone’s dialer and then press the green call button to access “Field Mode,” which can give you access to info about local networks and cell towers.

You’ll probably never ever have to know about your local cell tower’s “Measured RSSi,” but it’s fun to look around for a bit.

3. Force reboot

All of a sudden android devices freeze on few occasions. In case your android phone is frozen, you can reboot it instead of trying out other things and getting irritated by doing so. Just press Power Button+ Home Key + Volume up button simultaneously.

4. Get detailed information about phone status

We can get the detailed statistics related to our device like phone information, battery information, usage statistics and WiFi information by just dialing *#*#4636#*#* This is a handy USSD to get the details about battery usage, DNS check, Ping, Application time, usage time and so on.

5. Android Launchers

We don’t know how many of us actually use different launchers available in the play store. Generally people stick to the launcher provided by the manufacturer, and never realise that this can be modified. The launchers available these days can totally modify the look of the home screen and provide additional functionality to the phone. Just search for launchers in the play store.

Google’s New Initiative

ARCore is a platform for building augmented reality apps on Android. It utilises three defining technologies to integrate virtual content with the real world as seen through your phone’s camera.

With ARCore, you can shape brand new experiences that overlap the digital and physical worlds. You can transform the future of work and play on the Android platform. 

In close collaboration with Android, Daydream has released a preview of ARCore, an Android software development kit that will allow AR across Android phones with no additional hardware requirements. With ARCore, developers can start experimenting with AR capabilities on the Google Pixel and the Samsung S8 phones, running 7.0 Nougat and higher.

Supported Devices

ARCore is designed to work on a wide variety of qualified Android phones running N and later. During the SDK preview, ARCore supports the following devices:

• Google Pixel and Pixel XL
• Samsung Galaxy S8 

How does ARCore work?

Fundamentally, ARCore is doing two things, tracking the position of the mobile device as it moves, and building its own understanding of the real world.

ARCore’s motion tracking technology uses the phone’s camera to identify interesting points, called features, and tracks how those points move over time. With a combination of the movement of these points and readings from the phone’s inertial sensors, ARCore determines both the position and orientation of the phone as it moves through space.

In addition to identifying key points, ARCore can detect flat surfaces, like a table or the floor, and can also estimate the average lighting in the area around it. These capabilities combine to enable ARCore to build its own understanding of the world around it.

ARCore’s understanding of the real world lets you place objects, annotations, or other information in a way that integrates seamlessly with the real world. You can place a napping kitten on the corner of your coffee table, or annotate a painting with biographical information about the artist. Motion tracking means that you can move around and view these objects from any angle, and even if you turn around and leave the room, when you come back, the kitten or annotation will be right where you left it.

Read more here 

Must Study Apps

Learning of new codes is an essential element in the growth trajectory of a software developer.  If you are a new app developer and are particularly interested in learning about Android app development online, then you are at the right place. In this article, we will provide a list of some of the apps that provide a wholesome learning experience for those who wish to try their hands at Android app development.

1) LeafPic

One of the best apps to try for a beginner is LeafPic. This app will help you to know more about photo gallery and video app development for the Android OS. Dynamic theming done on this app helps to understand the functionality.

2) Easy Sound Recorder

As it’s a very small app, it is much easier to understand for a beginner. It helps you grasp the concept behind creating a full-fledged audio app. You can learn about the intricacies of executing audio manipulation from this app. Watch out for the material design done in the project as this will be a relevant design concept for the future.

3) Simple calendar

This app best exemplifies Kotlin (programming language for modern multiplatform applications). A simple yet smart design makes it good for new developers to try out. Customization of a widget text, as well as the background, adds to its charm.

4) Master Android

This is a step by step guide for Android app developers. The full detailed tutorials makes it easy to understand technological terms and makes your learning process smoother. The app is divided into 3 sections.

a) Android lessons.

b) Ask your doubts to developers.

c) Coding challenges for you.

5) Learn Android development

If you have just a basic understanding of a programming language, you can still use this tutorial app to design and create a working Android mobile app. It’s not just theory but practical guidance is also provided here. Do watch the demos for various Android activities as well get the source code.

6) Tutorial for Android: Examples

Use this tutorial to learn Android application development. This app is primarily divided into 3 sections

a) Android tutorials

b) Android examples and

c) Android quiz.

7) Create your own app

This app is perfect for basic Android coding and Android source codes. This learning app allows you to download the source code as a text file. Some of the other things this app distinguishes itself from other apps are: code downloading and feedback sending option, SDK setup detail and basic/advance Android codes.

8) Learn Android programming

This fast growing app lets you learn the basics of Android programming and it’s also helpful for those programmers who are already coding. It helps you to specialize in the Android programming sector by providing the latest in technology via its tutorials and assignment questions. This is one app that you should definitely look into if you like programming for Android.

In conclusion, it can be said that while there are thousands of apps to choose for an upcoming Android developer, he has to choose depending upon his own criteria, his area of interest, and the specialization he intends to do in that aspect.

O For Oreo

On 21st August 2017, coincidentally on the day of the total Solar Eclipse, Google has made an official announcement about the new version of Google Android 8.0 Oreo. This latest mobile OS brings many new features and improvement that comprises improved battery life, Picture-in-Picture mode, system optimization, improved security, new icons and emoji and several more.

What’s new?

A lot of things. There’s a feature called Pictute in Picture that lets you watch a video while you are doing other things. This might not seem like a new feature until you realize that it works with YouTube, too. Notification dots have also been added which let you see notifications without launching it by long pressing the app icon. Also, there’s a notification snooze option that’ll come in handy if you want to deal with some notifications later on but not at the moment. Also, now you can choose what kind of notification you’d like to see. A lot of other stuff, some of which are old things that have been improved, are mentioned below.

Interface changes

For the most part, the UI remains pretty much the same as it is in Android Nougat. There are some changes, though. The biggest change is in the settings menu. To get around easier, some settings have been renamed and relocated. Many of the settings submenus have been redesigned, as well. A lot things can now be seen in one submenu instead of several, which makes it easier to navigate around in the settings. The quick settings is now in grey. Also, the quick settings icon and the profile buttons are now at the bottom of quick settings instead of the top. The emojis are now more colorful and the face emoticons are now round. These are all minor changes that the average user will have no difficulty getting used to. A bigger change, however is the adaptive icons. You can now choose what shape you want your icons to be in. Customization freaks will find this especially exciting.

The seemingly invisible stuff.

A lot of features that come with Android O are under the hood. Bugs from Nougat have been fixed. Android O now offers a wider array of colors that can be displayed, of course, for the devices that support them. A number of new bluetooth codes have also been added natively to Android O. Considering how smartphone manufactures are ditching the headphone jack, these new codecs are going to be especially useful for bluetooth headphones. Android will also limit how apps operate in the background. This will help avoid unnecessary battery drainage by some notorious apps that love to suck your phone’s battery (Ahem, facebook). Also, Google play protect is now rolling out. It is not an Android O exclusive and will be available for Nougat and Marshmallow, as well. This feature lets you distinguish safe apps on the play store from malicious ones.

APIs.

A number of new APIs have been added in Android O, which will be useful for app developers and consumers alike. There’s a new autofill API for password managers and a new WIFI Aware API that’ll let devices communicate with each other without being connected to the same network. Some other APIs have also been added that let external hardware, like keyboards and mice, communicate better with the device. This will be helpful for Chromebooks which now support Android apps.

Here are some of the features in detail:

New Emoticons

We are in an age where smartphone users can converse simply via emoticons—or emojis as they are widely known. Emojis make any conversation a lot more enjoyable. Starting with Android v8.0 Oreo, Android will now come with differently designed emoticons. Previously, Google had ‘blob faced’ emojis and the inclusion of freshly designed emojis brought mixed reactions from people because some don’t like how flashy these newer models are.

Also, with Android v8.0, Google is now compatible with Emoji 5.0. This simply means that Android will now support a whole set of new emoticons including vomit face and dinosaurs.

Battery Life

With Android Oreo, Google has opted to limit background processes of applications when users have multiple apps running on their phone. This limitation is a much-needed move as applications, especially social media ones, consume a lot of battery when running in the background. Also, restriction for apps running in the background results in better performance because it optimises RAM management in any smartphone.

Android Oreo will primarily impose restraints on applications based on what an app running in the background can do.

Smarter Wi-Fi

If you use the Tasker app, you probably have enabled a task which toggles Wi-Fi according to your location. Some of us don’t use this application and just turn off Wi-Fi manually. We do this to save our battery or to stay away from any unsafe network. With Android v8.0 Oreo, smartphones running on the latest version of Android will be able to toggle Wi-Fi depending on users’ location. Users will be able to set locations where Wi-Fi will be toggled. This feature will surely save time and battery.

Autofill Password

Autofill Password is a feature which has made using Windows easier. Android v8.0 Oreo will also have this feature. With inbuilt AutoFill API, all password manager apps will just fill up passwords according to usernames while keeping the information secure. This feature will surely save Android users from going through the hassle of typing passwords every time.

Adaptive Icons

If you use a pure version of Android on your smartphone, you are probably mad at having to download icon packs just to see some changes in the UI. Meanwhile, your friends are probably rocking some built-in feature which allows them to change their icon shapes according to their wish. There’s good news for you! Google is adding ‘adaptive icons’ feature into its operating system.

Users will now get a chance to choose from five different icon shapes—Square, Rounded Square, System Default (Original), Teardrop and Squircle. With this move from Google, we will now get a chance to see similar icons everywhere.

The smartphone companies have already started to work on getting the latest and greatest from Google for their smartphones. Some major manufacturer giants who are already working on it are companies like Asus, HTC, Nokia, OnePlus, Samsung and Sony. They have already confirmed that some of their devices will receive Android Oreo update as soon as possible.

Are you geared up for some Oreo?

Creating The Perfect Android App For Beginners

Building an Android app comes down to two major skills/languages: Java and Android. Java is the language used in Android, but the Android part encompasses learning XML for the design of the app, learning the concepts of Android, and using the concepts logically with Java.

Once you learn Java and XML; XML is really easy to get used to, and you should learn the language as you program your app rather than learning it beforehand like you would with Java. You need to learn how to connect these two using Android principles.

Now for a total beginner, we recommend YouTube tutorials to get the basic idea of how to install Eclipse (the Integrated Development Environment, or IDE, for Java) and the Java Development Kit (JDK). It also helps to get the basic idea of syntax behind Java concepts, such as for loops and if statements.

Here is an example: Click to watch video 

But from then on, after you have learned the very basics, we HIGHLY recommend ditching the YouTube tutorials in favor of a book or a lecture series. YouTube tutorials very often do NOT give intuition behind important concepts.

Keep these following things in mind as you venture on your journey of building a successful Android App.

7 things to know before building your first Android App:

1. You need to learn Java, there is no way around it. Knowledge will only help you through the process of building an app.

2. Android part encompasses learning XML for the app design, understanding concepts of Android and using said concepts programmatically with Java.

3. Beginners should probably use an IDE. It is really useful and lets you experiment.

4. Building your first app is time-consuming: it won’t happen overnight. This is not a project for those looking for a shortcut to success.

5. When stuck on a problem which will inevitably happen, turn to Stack Overflow. Utilize Google, and have no shame in asking assistance from the experts.

6. Before hitting the market and start developing an application you should conduct a proper market research. Analyzing the market thoroughly will give you insights about your competitors, their strategy, their strengths and weakness too. This information will prove to be useful as you can avoid repeating the mistakes your competitors made.

7. Defining your target audience is very important as the audience plays a huge impact on the development of your mobile application. All these questions such as who will be using this app, and how is it going to help them, should be answered well before hand.

Best Of Luck.

Appcelerator’s Titanium is an open-source development platform that allows developers to create native applications for both mobile and desktop use. What’s better? Titanium allows developers to code in JavaScript, HTML and CSS.

Currently 285,663,256 devices are running apps built by this magnificent solution for developing mobile applications!

As with every software, there are both benefits and drawbacks associated with this platform.

Pros

• Rapid Prototyping

With flexibility in its DNA, Appcelerator’s Titanium immensely speeds-up application development with just a few lines of code in a few hours. It is important to note that this would usually require more attention and a few days. Whether you opt for native or cross-platform toolkits, Titanium is always an open option to develop a prototype to evaluate the user’s interaction with the UI, given its rapid development.

• JavaScript

With Titanium, JavaScript, a language well known by hundreds of thousands of developers, encourages more individuals coming from a web development background to easily transition to mobile app development. Over and above, Titanium shows off its combination of flexibility and structure–a fundamental characteristic of prototype-based scripting languages.

• Cross-platform

This obviously does not operate like how the well-known Java slogan goes: “write once, run on iOS and Android”, it’s slightly different. It is necessary to setup the development of one of the two platforms and then implement the required measures to make the app also run on the other one. The advantage here is given to you- the developer does not have to learn two languages and can reach a very high level of code reusability.

Cons

• Limitations in flexibility

Programs are interpreted “cross-compiled” by the vendor and as such incur a startup and runtime cost.

• Errors

Errors are usually not detected until runtime. Now, most developers know this can be a risky investment in a software that doesn’t give real-time feedback.

• There have been reports of unforeseen memory starvation issues. The SDK makes it quite easy to cram features into an app, but these features do not necessarily play nice with each other as far as memory is concerned.

• Even though you as a developer may initially expect to write for one platform, it is imperative that you conduct tests on all platforms.

As with everything that we use, there come advantages and disadvantages, but it is important to understand that these should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. This is because the size and complexity of the project predicts the number of bugs and limitations one could encounter when choosing to develop on this platform.

Titanium is however, an excellent tool for rapid prototyping to present a mock-up, within a few hours, into a prototype in order to evaluate consumer interests or conduct usability tests- or whatever floats your boat!

The Perfect Android Game

Android games have garnered huge popularity over the years. From simple games to complex gaming applications, the Android platform supports innumerable games and gaming apps. If we track the recent stats, Google Play Store records the launch of nearly 84.7K applications this year. We are talking about the reports published during March, and all of these applications are gaming apps.

In a nutshell, games are grabbing a considerable market share. Whether it’s a simple game or promotional gaming applications, users are taking great interest in one and all.

Assessing latest trends in Android game development

Tech innovations have led to the emergence of new gaming trends. You won’t find prolific gamers spending time on traditional gaming apps anymore. With the development and growth of AR and VR games, Pokemon Go has become the need of the hour. Avid gamers always wish for immersive gaming experiences, and that’s where these technologies come into the picture.

Creating a gaming app

Going by the current trends, a high-performance gaming app will fetch you huge ROIs. All you need to do is follow the right tips while developing it. Careful considerations of important aspects and in-depth knowledge of the platform are crucial in this regard. If you are planning to launch your gaming application and looking for the right platform to do so, Android will emerge as the first choice. Breeze through these tips and start working on your Android game today!

1.     Unique appeal

What’s so special about your game? What is it that makes it so unique and different from the others? Developing a unique game is more important than anything else. If your gaming app fails to deliver out-of-the-box experiences, your visitors will abandon it within a short time.

2.     Shorten wait times

A whopping 60% of avid gamers have to pass their time waiting for their games to load. As a developer, it’s your responsibility to shorten this waiting time thus keeping users hooked on to your gaming app.

3.     Chalking out monetization strategies

Since you are dedicating considerable efforts, substantial amount of time, and investments to create a game, it is imperative to know robust monetization tips. Chalk out a proper plan and make sure you implement the right strategies. Even if you are working on a freemium model, in-app purchase features will be effective.

4.     Emphasize on branding

While creating a gaming application, focus on developing it as a brand and not just a simple game. That will attract potential users and interested gamers, thus popularizing your gaming app across markets.

5.     Balance progression issues

While using a freemium model, a majority of gamers fail to get an exhilarating gaming experience. Make sure they get the desired experience while shifting from a freemium model to a paid version.

6.     Curate gaming communities

You should develop your app and work within a community. It is the key to understanding user preferences thus creating the right customer-acquisition strategies. User reviews and feedbacks will give you better opportunities to improve your app’s functionality.

Keep these six interesting tips in mind and create a unique, attractive, and stunning app for users!