Tech giant Google has always maintained a policy of including technology overhauls in major Android updates, and the Lollipop released to developers on June 26 this year is no exception. As an Android smart device user or developer, you might be interested in getting to know the Android L better and know more about its new feature sets. If so, then this blog post is just for you. Here we present some key improvements and new features that come bundled with Android L –

New Design

With Android Lollipop comes Google’s latest minimalistic UI design – “material design”. With this design, Google has adopted flat style icons for both home screens and the app drawer. Seen before in Apple and Microsoft Windows Phone devices, these flat style icons really add an element of simplicity and elegance to the UI. There is less clutter and more ease in navigation, thanks to this design philosophy being implemented in Android L.

Greater Consistency across Devices

Android Lollipop aims to cut down on the differences of usage and elements across different devices. Previously, there were certain design and functional nuances which were unique to a given phone or tablet brand. With Lollipop, users are set to get a cleaner, more uniform, and consistent look and feel irrespective of their device choice. Display size and resolution agnostic usage is one of the key points that Google wants to highlight with this version.

Fitness Assistant

With Android Lollipop, you can now have all your fitness data in one place. Google Fit integrates with devices like smart watches and health apps, to keep all your fitness data at one place. It is easy to store, recall and process data and fine-tune your fitness regime with the new Google Fit.

Touch Feedback

If you have been an Android user for long, one thing you must have missed is any kind of visual feedback when using the three main soft Android buttons. With Lollipop, Google has included a visual tweak- a simple animation that signals with a transparent circle when the device registers a touch on any of the three Android buttons at the bottom. This is set to make usage more intuitive and fluid.

New Look Gmail

Google has managed to put in a major design revamp for Gmail with Android L. This will make the look more consistent with their “material design” theme. Without looking gaudy or overboard, the Gmail app now incorporates a riot of colors and is a visual treat.

Chrome Tabs in Recent Apps

If you access your recent apps list, you will now be able to see all tabs open in Chrome as separate tiles. This lets you access any particular tab directly, and also to selectively close the tabs you no longer need.

Better Notifications

For your notifications, you now have the option to specify particular interruption rules when you go into the settings menu. These instructions enable you to prioritize notifications from certain apps. It also helps you use your notification system in a much more fine-tuned and customized manner.

New Keyboard

The “material design” philosophy has been brought over to the Android keyboard. The keyboard in Lollipop is borderless. This imparts an elegant look to both the extended keyboard and the dialer. Simple gesture support has also been added for easier operation.

If you are an app developer, you might be well aware that the enthusiasm for a new app is almost always at its peak right after its launch. Targeted marketing, social media visibility and a general high degree of activity characterizes the app store launch phase for your app. With time, however, the daily downloads dwindle and interest in the app slowly wanes.

A question now arises on how to keep the momentum going after a few weeks of app release. While there are scores of knowledge resources on how to achieve app release success, there are very few articles on how to keep potential users engaged after weeks or months of app release. Leaving your apps to stagnate is in no way a productive strategy, and you need to offer regular updates which actually give your users useful, value-adding and meaningful additions to your app. Before you think of releasing that all-important update, here are a few things to consider –

• Respecting Trends – Nowadays, public opinion is influenced to a large extent by trends – be it movie releases, major current events or viral social content. With your updates, it is always essential to leverage the added coverage and attention that adapting to trends can bring to your app. Capitalize on current trends and you can significantly add to the popularity of your app. A good example is the Icon Pop Quiz that brings icons for the iOS app, Icon Pop, based on trending themes, topics or celebrities.

• Update or New App – Updates can be small bug fixes, small feature additions or complete overhauls. Alternatively, you can opt to release an entirely new version of your app. Before contemplating an update, decide what kind of an update you want to push, and what it will offer in terms of value and consequent returns. Whatever you do, you need to keep a dual focus on existing customers as well as potential market.

• Immediate or Collective Updates – Updates can be small or large, depending on the elapsed time between updates and the effort put in to include enhancements. Small updates come more frequently, and are particularly helpful if you want to constantly test your marketing strategies and monetization models. Larger updates are essentially more radical, and allow you to provide users with a blast of new features. If your app is competing in a tight market, a large update might give you the necessary boost you need to eclipse your competition.

• Considering User Feedback – The best way to identify bugs in your app and get ideas for new features is to listen to user feedback. Check to see if a large volume of people are reporting a bug or requesting a particular new feature. This is the kind of feedback which you need to pay attention to during releasing updates.

• Keeping it Relevant – Many developers push updates just for the sake of it. You need to treat app updates seriously and ensure that every update adds something to the usage experience. It might be something as small as a bug fix or as voluminous as a UI overhaul. No matter what, be practical and keep your updates relevant.

With considerable demand for Ruby on Rails driven applications, we are constantly on lookout for professional talent in this domain. Over the last few months there are some specific characteristics we have noticed in the hiring-training-absorption phase that generated good talent in-house. The below listing is based on what we feel are strong factors that will help companies and hiring managers select the right talent for Ruby development.

1. Aligning to company values – if you are a start-up or midsize company you need to be clear about aligning organizational objectives with the candidate’s expectations. If the company culture promotes honest and transparent employee-employer relationship, there is very high chance of the employee performing productively and adding value to the company. Though good paychecks do hold forte in the hiring process, company values matter too.

2. Work environment – Once hired, the Ruby on Rails programmer is bound to come up with his/her own set of ideas (from past experience or recent qualification). The key is to utilize such non-routine ideas to make an existing project better. It might happen that the company has been using Test Unit for rails application testing. However if a new employee justifies the merits of using Rspec or Cucumber for application testing then as a business owner you can give it a shot.

3. Open Source contribution – If the candidate has significant resources put up by way of knowledge, insights or experiments on forums like GitHub, then the candidate is more often than not likely to see through set norms and go above and beyond to deliver excellence to the client. Since programming for the love of it is a key trait that defines our success in cut-throat competition these days, our suggestion would be – hire such early adopters or norm breakers before somebody else does!

4. Basic premise – Do get your candidates checked for sound foundation of basic knowledge such as OOP principles. Many companies have the tendency to grill potential recruits on advanced concepts such as APIs. However we truly believe that a person with sound knowledge of programming concept can readily grasp these.

5. Team spirit – Programming and development projects are often entrusted to multiple people. Try to gauge how good a team player is the candidate. Yours is a team-oriented operation. Lack of humility or empathy to team spirit can be a serious baggage later on. Make sure you are adequately covered on this soft skill aspect when interviewing potential hires. You will be sure to pick the right candidate this way. This factor becomes all the more necessary for a growing or midsize organization.

While measurable expectations will set the tone for initial rounds of interviewing, we believe that this is not the sole criteria when hiring Ruby on Rails developers. One has to look beyond qualification and experience and study their general aptitude to professional life.

If you see a surge in Ruby on Rails project demand, and want to capitalize with insight based talent sourcing in this domain, then we hope this post is of assistance to you.

If you have just started off with developing games for computer or mobile, we completely understand your unbridled enthusiasm and passion behind your latest career move. However wouldn’t it be good benefit from nifty bits of suggestion based on our own experience? These points will help you avoid repeating a mistake that has happened in the past and take advantage of the hard learning’s of others. So here we go –

1. Avoid exploring complex ideas first – Games genres such as First Person Shooter (FPS) are hard to develop and it ultimately saps up the energy and time out of you by the time you are done. Are you ready to invest such a long development time without worrying about its time to market?  Can your first project compete effectively against popular games like Call of Duty? Isn’t it better to start small, gain valuable experience and then move on to bigger things?

GoodWorkLabs tip of the day – Irrespective of the size of your project, make sure that you break your project into manageable tasks, get it executed, get it tested and step back to enjoy the results

2. Don’t ignore prototypes – Prototypes helps you determine whether an element, sound or character you are adding is necessary or redundant. It helps you cut down on wastages and help you check if your game, in its simplest form, is engaging. This will present you enough reasons to put in dedicated development time and efforts.

GoodWorkLabs tip of the day – If time is on your side, go ahead with creating 3-4 prototypes. This helps in mitigating risks by knowing that at least one of the designs will click.

3. Note it down – Make full use of the Game Design Document (GDD). It will help you keep your thoughts organized and going in a single direction. Be it characters, user interface, soundtrack or gameplay, keep all of it in tight control by noting it down.

GoodWorkLabs tip of the day – Many times random thoughts might come up which may or may not be used in the current project. Keep a section “Miscellaneous’ for such random/extra stuff.

4. Don’t test on friends – Reach out to complete strangers (who are gamers) for their unbiased advice that can improve your game. Break away from the comfort zone of test play with your friends.

GoodWorkLabs tip of the day – Did you know that you can take the latest build of your game to show off to general audience in trade shows, game festivals or events?

5. Don’t ignore marketing till the very end – If you do something well, learn how to sell it well too. Focusing only on technical aspects without getting the test play to a larger unbiased audience will lead to coverage problem upon release.

GoodWorkLabs tip of the day – In addition to marketing to publishers or app stores, make sure you also connect with the end user and incorporate their feedback for better success.

Here’s wishing you all the very best for your indie game development endeavor. Write in to us and share your feedback on how effective was this post in your first games development effort.

As a business owner looking to expand your online presence, you might have typically experienced the whole-hearted dedication with which web designers and developers focus on getting the website design aspect right. But are you confident that the site has been well coded and that any coding issue doesn’t impact the SEO or user accessibility chances of your website?

Why is it critical to get the programming right?

As a web surfer yourself, you might have come across a number of poorly rendered websites that look good but suffer from one coding problem or another. Since you will not be able to see the poor coding, but just its harmful impact, you will simply close the site and move on. This is precisely what happens to badly programmed websites; the business owners lose prospective clients, are ignored by Google algorithms and can also land you in legal trouble.

When it comes to industry standards in W3C compliance, programming and markups, you do not have to be a developer to sense a potential issue. The below 3 reasons will be good indicators to alert you of a problem with coding of the website that you can then bring up with the web developer and get it corrected.

1. SEO – This is a key reason why your website needs to be well coded. Try comparing two websites – one with good markup and one with poorer markup. Google will readily rank the website with good markups better than the other one. Elements like character encoding, RSS validity or valid metadata denote a W3C compliant website that will in turn be favored by Google.

GWL tip#1 – Try using a validator program such as one on http://validator.w3.org/ that checks the markup validity of HTML or XHTML pages

2. User accessibility – Imagine closing out your website to a certain section of people because of accessibility issues. You are not only excluding possible revenue generating audience but also face a probable legal infringement lawsuit. Having a well coded site means that it will work on older browsers or older machines. It also means that people with disabilities can still access the website with ease.

GWL tip#2 – Try out the W3C knowledge resource http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/people-use-web/principles to see how you can implement this particular factor within your website

3. Usability of backend – With so much content generation and social media sharing these days, it is no surprise that a good content management system helps maintain the freshness of the site with periodic content updates.  Having a CMS integration also helps engage better with customers and in sales conversion.

GWL tip#3 – In case your company has in-house team of developers, let their creativity flow out with a little help from http://modx.com/

You can even go one step further and proactively ask your developers if these responsibilities are being performed by them. This way you do not have to wait for the problem to crop up and then get it rectified. As they say – prevention is better than cure!

Businesses looking to set up an online shopping portal are often put off by the intimidation of escalating costs at the development stage. While e-commerce portal brings in remarkable results thanks to shifting customer preference and the deep penetration of mobile, the prospect of high development costs is a key reason why most e-commerce sites do not get past the ideating stage. By investing in the best WordPress hosting, e-commerce businesses can optimize performance, reduce unexpected expenses, and improve operational efficiency—all of which contribute to cutting overall development costs.

If you want to know which are the pain points as regards costs during e-commerce development and ways to circumvent them, then read on…

1. Hosting – One of the critical elements of e-commerce portal is the space needed to store descriptions, databases, high res images, payment gateway integration, individual integrations and security programming. Many companies face disconnect between the products they have listed on the site versus how much space is required to store them. Most e-commerce stores start small, with a handful of product categories and few seller networks. This calls for smaller hosting space. However, hosting space should not remain constricted but rather be flexible as per the growth of the store. Such smart managing of hosting space will help save a ton on overall development costs.

2. Strategic Planning before actual development – Both client and developers have been guilty of not putting in enough time and efforts at the planning stage simply to save some time. However the benefit of investing dedicated time into meticulous planning far outweighs the negatives.

As a good developer you would start off with a brief questionnaire to know more about the client and its target audience. Some of the key questions to be answered at the planning stage would include –

1.   Knowing about the customer (e.g.- whether B2B or B2C)?

2.   Knowing about the best way to attract them to the portal

3.   Pointers on heightened customer experience during online shopping

4.   Key add-ons/third party/individual integration to the site

5.   Handling scalability and growth in future

6.   Handling scope creeps or revisions to schedules and estimates

Answers to these will help to decide on an appropriate choice of platform and back-end before you commence with the actual coding. If this starting point seems overwhelming to you, it will be good to hire the e-services of a good consulting firm. The investment and time will definitely help in a streamlined e-commerce portal development process.

3. Choose the right platform- Each shopping platform has its pros and cons. You need to be aware of what suits your project needs best and then decide on an appropriate platform in order to keep development costs low. For instance, Magneto is a good choice if you need thousands of products to be put up on the shopping portal. However it tends to be very heavy. On the other hand, Shopify provides a hosted platform that guarantees 99% up-time, complete data security and competent tech support.

While Shopify may take a bit more time to customize the storefront, OpenCart provides a lot of flexibility in modifying the look and feel of your digital store. Also when we consider the compatibility and pricing of plug-ins, the open source OpenCart platform offers plug-ins that is around 30-40% cheaper than official Woocommerce plugins. On the flip side however, people have had problems with OpenCart tech support.

Considering above factors will certainly help you keep both costs and time of development in check.