According to Forbes.com, “In 2014, app downloads are expected to top 179 billion. By 2017, this is going to rise to over almost 270 billion.” The download figures clearly indicate that mobile applications have become an inseparable part of modern lifestyle. The rapidly increasing popularity of mobile apps encourages many enterprises to switch from web-based marketing to mobile marketing. A constant increase is also being noted in the number of companies carrying out marketing campaigns through mobile apps. Mobile apps help businesses in promoting their products or services by targeting the most relevant customers regardless of their current geographical locations. Both large and small businesses can further reap several benefits by carrying out marketing through mobile applications. Advantages of Using Mobile Apps for Marketing Products or Services Target a Much Wider Audience: Many reports have highlighted the rapidly growing popularity of smartphones, tablets, phablets and other mobile devices. So a business has options to launch applications for a wide variety of mobile devices. An enterprise can use apps to promote its products or services by targeting more than one billion smart devices. It can easily convey the marketing materials and promotional offers to millions of customers and prospects without putting any extra effort. Reach Customers Anytime and Anywhere: Most users keep their mobile devices within arm’s reach. Many users even carry their smartphones, tablets and phablets throughout the day. So the mobile apps enable businesses to communicate with their customers and prospects anytime and anywhere. Along with conveying the marketing materials, the mobile apps can also be used by enterprises to send messages and notifications. A number of reports have highlighted that messages or notifications sent through mobile applications are read by the recipients in mere seconds. Personalize Marketing Campaigns: A business can also use mobile apps to gather detailed information about the customers. For instance, an enterprise can use mobile apps to know the habits, hobbies, preferences and socioeconomic status of its target audience. The vital customer data collected through the apps can be used by the company to make its marketing campaigns personalized. The personalized mobile marketing campaigns will help the business in increasing its sales and revenues. Build Long-Term Relationships: To remain profitable in the longer run, each enterprise has to build long-term relationship with its customers. Along with attracting new customers, it is also important for the business to keep the existing customers engaged and happy. The mobile apps make it easier for businesses to attract new customers by conveying attractive offers and special deals. Likewise, the applications can further generate repeat business by delivering impressive customer service. A business can further use the applications to improve the quality of customer service by collecting customers’ feedback and response. Facilitate Marketing Content Creation: The quality of marketing content often impacts the marketing campaign results directly. So each business has to invest time, efforts and funds to deliver attractive and engaging marketing content. Often enterprises find it a daunting challenge to design marketing content for web-based promotional campaigns. But an enterprise can create mobile marketing content without putting any extra time and efforts. The mobile content along with specials and promotional information can also be conveyed to the target audience effectively through mobile apps. Allow Customers to Buy Products on the go: The webs stores have made it easier for customers to buy products without any hassle. But a business can make it easier for customers to buy products through their mobile device. A customer can further use his mobile device to buy desired products on the go. So a business can use mobile apps to modernize its sales and transaction process. It can create an application that allows customers to select items and make payment regardless of their current locations. The right mobile app can further help the business in getting more sales and inquiries. On the whole, a business can get higher ROI by carrying out marketing campaigns through mobile apps. The business can further use certain tools to launch applications for different mobile platforms. So it becomes easier for a company to promote its products and services regardless of users’ mobile devices and operating systems. Offshore mobile application development teams can help you build projects within allocated budgets and time schedules. We provide mobile app development services. If you would like to hire mobile app developers from us, we would be glad to assist you at Mindfire Solutions.
The frequent changes in the choices and preferences have made mobile application development complex and time-consuming. But each enterprise wants to develop the app at a rapid pace to beat competition. If you are planning to build a long lasting mobile application, it becomes essential to concentrate on its functionality and UI design along with the coding. As a key part of the designing process, you must plan and wireframe the mobile app to curtail development cost and time.
In simple words, a wireframe can be defined as a manually drawn diagram that visually represents a process or a system to various stakeholders. However, the visual representation of a process or system needs to be extensive enough to cover all significant elements. That is why; a wireframe is considered to be the most effective way to create the outline or skeleton of the mobile application development process.
Why Use Wireframe to Outline Your Entire Mobile App Development Process?
Can be Used for Several Purposes
Both mobile application developers and designers can use wireframe. The designers can use it to outline the user interface process, whereas the developers can use wireframe to control the app’s functionality concretely. At the same time, it can also be used by information architects and UX designers to describe the navigation path.
Similarly, wireframe can be further used by business analysts to support the communication and business rules needs visually. On the whole, wireframe can be used as part of several mobile application development processes to optimize the app design by seamlessly combining both objectives and requirements.
Helps in Making the App Compatible with Different Mobile Devices
Often mobile app developers and designers find it a daunting challenge to display all requirements on the stipulated space of the mobile screen. They have to explore ways to deliver the essence of the project by displaying all requirements on the screens of different mobile devices. The issues can be resolved easily through wireframes. The designers can create wireframe to organize the desired options on the mobile device.
Further, they can experiment with different ideas to present the requirements on the mobile screens. The wireframe will allow them to note downs the requirements and ideas, along with adding comment on each screen. It will further make it easier for programmers to understand the expectations by referring to the wireframe, and optimize the coding process.
Allows to Incorporate Changes without Any Hassle
Most mobile applications are being changed during the development process to deliver richer user experience. Wireframe enables the developers and designers to incorporate changes in a smart and cost-efficient way. Before making any changes to the app, the developers can create a wireframe. So they can save time, efforts and cost by outlining the entire process before implementing it in real time.
They can further use a several diagramming tools to outline the process to include new features or functionality. The wireframe can be further shared among the stakeholders to facilitate close coordination. Also, the collaboratively built wireframe will help developers in integrating the changes in a quick and hassle-free way. At the same time, it will further eliminate the revisions required due to poor coordination among different stakeholders.
You also have option to use several tools to wireframe the mobile app or mobile website development process by targeting a specific mobile platform. Some of the widely used wireframe design tool like Proto, Moqups, UXPin, Balsamiq, Justinmind and Fluid will help you in optimizing the app design process to form the layout of the app you want to develop. However, you have to choose the tools and applications by keeping in mind the specific requirements of your project. You can hire developers from top offshore mobile application 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 talk to one of our expert mobile app developers, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.
Many reports have highlighted how the mobile application development industry is growing at an explosive pace. The rapidly growing popularity of mobile apps has further encouraged many companies to launch innovative apps at regular intervals. However, the rapid increase in the number of mobile apps can be attributed to several factors. In addition to the huge popularity of mobile device, the development is also boosted due to improved data speed, new mobile operating systems and expansion of mobile app stores. The growing demand for mobile apps will remain intact over a longer a many years. But the future prospects of mobile application development will also be impacted by a number of factors.
5 Trends that will Impact Future Prospects of Mobile Application Development
1) New Mobile Operating Systems: The mobile app development landscape is still dominated by iOS and Android. Despite being there since some time, Blackberry and Windows mobile are trailing. The upcoming year will see many new mobile operating systems entering into the landscape. Along with the mobile Firefox OS from Mozilla, the users will soon have access to a proprietary OS known as Sailfish. The new operating systems will mostly target the emerging market with the strategy to completely phase out the feature phones. So smartphones will now be affordable for most users. The new mobile platforms will further contribute towards the explosive growth rate of mobile apps.
2) More Powerful Processors: With new operating systems entering into the mobile app development landscape, it has become essential for Apple, Google and Microsoft to retain users by offering more innovative features. Recently, Apple released the iPhone 5s with a 64-bit processor chip. So other companies will optimize their mobile devices with similar processor chips to beat competition. In fact, Samsung and Qualcomm have promised to launch devices with chips having high processing power before the end of 2014. With more and more companies providing chips with high processing power, the mobile application developer will now build robust applications to avail the feature.
3) Innovative Features of Mobile Devices: The mobile application development is always affected by the fresh and innovative features included in the mobile devices. Many companies are planning to launch mobile devices that can be worn as smart glasses or smart watches. These new devices are expected to transform the conventional way of using mobile phones. It may take some time for the wearable mobile devices to become hugely popular. But the innovative features of the mobile devices will encourage developers to build completely new kind of apps. The existing apps will be further optimized to deliver richer user experience across different types of mobile devices.
4) Optimized Enterprise Apps: A consistent increase is noted in the number of people accessing internet on their mobile devices. So it has become essential for enterprises to optimize the look, feel and performance of their websites for various mobile devices. At present, many organizations prefer mobile website to customized enterprise apps to curtail expenses. But soon companies have to develop enterprise apps to interact with and engage customers. Many companies will even opt for mobile advertisement to impress the prospects by complementing their preferences and lifestyles.
5) Connecting Mobiles and Other Devices: Each user wants to use his smartphone for multiple purposes. Many people, nowadays, are using mobile apps to operate their TV sets and video game consoles. But companies like Samsung and Google are investing in innovative technologies to enable users to control and operate a variety of appliances directly from their smartphones. Thus, customized mobile apps will be designed to connect several household appliances including TV set, washing machine and video game consoles. The growing popularity of connected objects will further contribute towards development of more customized mobile applications.
A number of reports have further highlighted that more and more enterprises are investing in cross-platform mobile app development. But each company will build applications by targeting the popularity and market share of individual mobile operating systems. Thus, the future prospect of mobile application development will also be directly impacted by the popularity of the mobile platforms. 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 offshore mobile application development services. If you would like to hire mobile app programmers from us, we would be glad to assist you at Mindfire Solutions.
As a powerful development framework, ASP.NET enables developers to build a wide variety of websites and internet application using HTML, JavaScript, CSS and server-side scripting. The programmers also have option to pick from three distinct development models, i.e., Web Pages, Web Forms and model view controller (MVC). Web Forms allows programmers to create event-driven and data-driven web pages by combining HTML, server scripting and server control.
Further, the Web Forms are compiled and executed on the server, and the output is displayed to users as HTML web pages. The web controls and web components provided by Web Forms can also be used to create rich mobile internet applications. However, each developer must keep in mind certain things while creating mobile internet apps with ASP.NET Mobile Web Forms.
Important Things to Remember while using ASP.NET Mobile Web Forms
Mobile Web Server Controls
You can always use the System.Web.Mobile namespace to access mobile internet development in ASP.NET. The MobilePage base class can be used to create a mobile web page, while the System.Web.Mobile namespace will add web server control to the page. In .NET framework, the mobile web server controls has several specialized adapter. You can use the adapters to build robust mobile apps by targeting a wide variety of mobile devices. At the same time, the web server controls are also available to meet specific development needs. ASP.NET further provided additional mobile-control device adapters that support major mobile devices and their markup language.
Adapter Configuration for Different Requesting Devices
As most ASP.NET web server controls adhere to unified adapter architecture, they behave dynamically according to the requesting devices. These controls can further call a custom adapter to provide appropriate behavior for a specific device. For instance, the custom adapter can generate markup according to the calling device. But you have to configure the adapter in the browser definitions file found inside the Browsers folder of the .NET Framework Config directory. Once you configure the adapter, it can adjust the rendered output, while handling the device-specific requirements.
Customization of Adapters and Mobile Controls
Microsoft provides updated adapter for major markup languages. But there are always chances that the adapters may not complement the behavioral requirements of newly launched mobile devices. So you have to consider modifying the existing adapter or create new adapters to make the internet app compatible with new mobile devices. Nowadays, most applications are being designed by targeting mobile device and desktop computer users at a time. The customization of adapter will help you in addressing the behavior variations required by web browsers and mobile devices.
Detect the Requesting Device Type
With enterprises launching new samrtphones and tablets at frequent intervals, it has become essential for mobile web application to render the most appropriate output by identifying the requesting mobile device. ASP.NET allows you to make existing internet apps compatible with the latest mobile devices simply by adding the following META tags in the header section of the page.
<meta name="HandheldFriendly" content="true" />
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width" />
At the same time, you also have option to use the Request.IsMobileDevice option provided by ASP.NET Web Forms to check if the requesting device is a cell phone, smartphone or tablet. Alternately, you can also create custom control to detect the device type, and redirect the user to the most relevant web app according to his mobile device.
Each programmer also has option to build mobile web apps rapidly by using Visual Studio Express which is a free version of Microsoft Visual Studio. The drag-and-drop web controls and web components provided by Visual Studio Express help programmers in building mobile websites without putting any extra time and effort. 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 talk to one of our expert mobile app developers, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.
An offshore mobile app development organisation can do wonders, for it would bring down the costs to a large extent for the mother company. In this age, it is all about providing the best to customers worldwide, with the least amount of costs involved. This is why firms across the globe are looking at India for an answer, one that would curb expenses as well as bring in high quality apps. However, it would also be wise to learn more on why outsourcing the job of developing high quality apps would be feasible.
Let’s then take a look at the number of benefits companies across the world gain, using outsourcing schemes.
Benefits of outsourcing mobile app development services to India
1. To begin with, when outsourcing is done by the parent company to India, the company wouldn’t have to deal with large costs. Large costs happen when they have to hire or recruit developers as well as pay them salaries for the job in hand, along with benefits as per the law of the land. Apart from evading these costs, companies wouldn’t have to worry about depreciation or equipment costs, hired or bought, since that would be taken care of by the outsourced party. The money saved by the parent company then would be channelled to the outsourced team, but this doesn’t mean it has invested the money, rather the company only pays for the mobile app development services, not for infrastructure set up or recruitment costs.
2. High quality levels are assured with outsourced vendors in India. They follow the policy of honouring every request of the client. In house employees could be a little wayward with their attitude towards the task in hand, the same wouldn’t be with an outsourced company that dwells on an “I can do it attitude”
3. With off-shoring, a company wouldn’t have to involve internal employees for the task in hand. Rather, the company can now invest the internal sources time as well as energy into other core functions of the business, especially for profit making.
4. Talking about technology to be used while developing an app, an outsourced vendor would have all the updates and latest knowhow, technological inputs and state of the art tools to develop an outstanding app, which means the parent company doesn’t have to invest in research and development, testing etc.
5. Outsourcing also brings in stability when it comes to pricing, and parent companies wouldn’t have to waste time shopping around for price comparisons too. Budgets would be stable, operations would be efficient resulting in on time deliveries.
6. When you outsource you start getting recognised in India. Other companies would want to know more about your venture, and maybe tie up with your company as a business friend too. When that happens, they would want to invest in your company shares, which might result in maximum output.
7. Government coalitions wouldn’t affect the developmental process; the markets in India are very liberal and open at all times to work with.
8. The opportunities for investment using incentive schemes are wide and in abundance for parent companies to choose and indulge in. There are special economic zones created for lower imports and lower tariffs too.
9. The consumer market across India is huge. Moreover, with more than a billion consumers waiting to try your apps, imagine the amount of revenue flowing in for the company.
10. You get highly qualified, well trained and updated young men working round the clock. Tech support or assistance is available even in the middle of the night. Universities and colleges of repute are churning out more than half a million tech graduates every year, and the resource pool boasting of innovation is in abundance for parent companies to tap into.
The Indian scenario has always been of prime importance, especially for it’s time difference when it comes to outsourcing for companies big or small. Big players such as USA, UK, European nations and Australia look at the 24x7 support, which they get from India with glee. 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 hire mobile app programmers for help on your projects, we would be glad to assist you at Mindfire Solutions.
Within a very short span of time, mobile app development has become a hugely profitable business venture. Many new enterprises, nowadays, invest in mobile application development to get more revenue and profit. Along with launching rich and powerful application to target specific mobile devices, an enterprise also need to ensure that the application is wanted and used by customers regularly. The innovative digital marketing techniques can help you to target more relevant users. But it is also important to emphasize on rapid iteration for mobile app iteration to deliver good user experience consistently, while encouraging the users to recommend your mobile application to others.
5 Effective Techniques to Iterate Mobile App Development Rapidly
1) Keep Users Addicted: Despite a large number of new mobile apps being launched on a regular basis, many reports have highlighted that about 15% of the applications are being used by customers on a regular basis. So you must explore options to build a base of habituated users by picking the most innovative ideas, features and functionality. You must remember that the application must be offering something refreshing and extra to users to keep them addicted. Before implementing your mobile app idea, you must do a thorough brainstorming to decide what the app needs to seduce users to come back to it on a daily basis.
2) Try to Gain User’s Trust: Often apps require users to complete registration process without understanding their nature and features. The login screens of such apps, normally, ask users to register by creating an account or using their social media profile. You must remember that no user will share his personal date or social media profile access details without understanding the usage and functionality of the app. So the value of your app must be conveyed to the user to gain his trust before asking him to register or give access to his social media profile.
3) Find Out If Users will Miss Your App: While investing in mobile application development, each enterprise need to differentiate between actual usage and number of downloads. The popularity of an app will remain intact in the long run, when users will miss it badly, instead of being disappointed. So the application must use some efficient feedback mechanism to receive user feedback and responses consistently. Based on the user input, you must identify and fix the flaws in the application to make it more successful and sustainable in the long run.
4) Check if the Users Recommend Your App: There are several ways to promote a mobile application. But the application can be marketed most effectively through the word of mouth and recommendation of existing users. So you must check if the users are recommending your mobile application to their friends. It is also a good idea to encourage the users to rate your app, along with answering questions like whether they will recommend the app to others. The question can be included as part of the user feedback, while asking customers about what the application lacks.
5) Avoid Simultaneously Targeting Multiple Mobile Platforms: Most enterprises, nowadays, launch multiple versions of the same app by targeting different mobile platforms. You can always get more revenue by moving across multiple mobile platforms rapidly. But you must remember that the developing and testing the app for multiple mobile platforms is both complex and time consuming, while being prone to additional bugs and flaws. At the same time, you will find it a daunting challenge to deliver better user experience across each platform. So you can always make the app sustainable in the long run by focusing on single mobile operating system at a time. After launching the app for a particular mobile platform, you can start planning to develop a different version for another mobile operating system.
The mobile app development strategy also needs to consider the upcoming trends in technology and user demand. An enterprise must avail mobile app analytic services to observe the behavior of existing users, along with identifying certain features that need improvement. 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 talk to one of our expert mobile app developers, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.
As a large chunk of the world population is increasingly getting hooked to Smartphones and tablets, there is a recent trend amongst businesses to design and deploy mobile applications in order to fulfill their internal needs as well as the requirements of their clients. Given this huge demand, the mobile app development process needs to be injected with more amount of maturity and discipline with a team or teams taking ownership of the same. But before we discuss further on who is responsible for this app development process, let us go for a comprehensive overview of the general application design procedure.
The mobile application development procedure
There are certain fundamental steps which go into the development of a mobile app. Let us understand the procedure in a step by step manner.
- First of all the developers need to understand the business goals or expectations of the client, especially the vision as well as mission. Herein starts the effort to come up with the best possible outcome with respect to every project.
- Next comes a thorough comprehension of the different facets of the industry within which the client operates. This is of immense significant for feature enhancements, that would give the client a competitive edge over others in the market.
- Based on the clients instruction along with a unique blend of technical expertise combined with creative abilities, compelling messages are delivered.
- Then the mobile app developers intricately leverage mobile technology along with web programming solutions, and carry out the procedure, strictly adhering to the client's time-line and ultimately ensuring that the result meets the client's expectations.
- With the development of each application, however meticulously it might be done, there is always the possibility of potential defects or errors. Hence to ensure the quality of the application, focus should also be laid on identifying content errors, software defects, as well as design and usability flaws within the products. The software testing phase involves a blend of various procedures, ultimately leading to a comprehensive testing of the entire app.
- One the creation of the application is over, the app is then published in different app stores, for the user to download.
- Once you create and publish an app for the iPad, iPhone, Android or iPod platforms, advertisement and promotion of the app becomes a very crucial aspect. The promotional package may include campaigns across social media, websites or any other public relation campaigns.
- Building, publishing and promoting the app is not enough. To ensure that the app delivers as per the expected performance, continuous maintenance should be carried out, which in turn enriches the client's experience.
Who takes the real responsibility for development?
Given the mobile development process, it is indeed clear that a lot of effort goes into the designing of an app. New ideas should be put to action by blending them with technological skills and creative acumen and this calls for involvement of dedicated people and teams. The mobile development procedure calls for more maturity, as stated by a recent survey conducted among 804 executives including CEOs, IT directors as well as development managers. 85% of the respondents point out to the fact that so far as their enterprises are concerned, there is no single “mobile leader”. The absence of mobile leaders in a way reveals that there also exists the lack of any corporate mobile strategy. The survey also brings out that there are a number of companies which do not have well-defined mobile strategies.
On the whole it is seen that the IT world is busy with supporting more than one mobile operating system. The need for the day is a synchronization of the entire process, with responsible teams in charge of specific activities. A great step in this direction is the move towards mobile-specific APIs which will in turn boost the integration between front-end apps and back-end enterprise systems. And that’s when you would need to hire mobile app programmers who are certified and benchmarked by the industry.
We provide mobile app development services. If you would like to talk to one of our expert mobile app developers, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.
