Posted by:


Google has improved its Android app Store a lot in the past few years, but sometimes you need an alternative. For those times, here are 9 great Play Store alternatives that you should know about right now. While these alternatives may not provide you with all the functionality you may desire, they can come in handy in a number of ways.

Sometimes an app is not available in your region on the official App Store for Android and it is a very valid problem for many people. Thankfully, the Play Store alternatives do not segment their audience based on the region and provide apps to all of them.

Other times a country may have blocked Google services and the Android Play Store might not be readily accessible.

For developers, these alternate app stores offer another stream of revenue. If you are a developer and you’ve developed an Android app, you’d absolutely want to get extra eyeballs from these alternate app stores.

Some people also like to keep backups of apps in the form of APK files for later usage. The Play Store doesn’t allow us to download a backup of an app, instead, it automatically installs the app on your phone after downloading. So if you want to have a healthy collection of apps which are ready to be installed on any device you want, it is advisable to download them from one of these great PlayStore alternatives.

A word of caution, though, while these Storefronts are well-maintained and have a healthy collection of Android apps, there might be some malicious apps lurking on them.

To be honest, Google also doesn’t have a fail-proof method of detecting harmful apps on their Store but at least they take them down immediately after discovery.

CLICK HERE to read more.

Posted by:


Mobile gaming apps continue to grow at a fast and furious pace, set to reach 60% market share in consumer gaming spend in 2019. In partnership with AppsFlyer, the global leader in mobile attribution and marketing analytics; the 2019 Mobile Gaming Apps Report delivers valuable user acquisition trends and benchmarks by mobile gaming sub-category, including in-app conversion rates and retention data.

by Liz Rustia

The report draws from Liftoff internal data from April 1, 2018, through March 31, 2019 — spanning 90.9 billion ad impressions across 13.6 million installs and 3.9 million in-app events. AppsFlyer’s analysis of retention data (Day 1, Day 3, Day 7, Day 14 and Day 30), based on 6,500 apps and 950 million installs, is integrated throughout the report.

In this report you find:

  • A breakdown of key engagement activities and trends to compare performance across platforms (Android and iOS) and throughout the calendar year.
  • An analysis of regions (North America, EMEA, APAC and LATAM) highlighting key countries and trends.
  • Additional granularity on four distinct gaming app sub-categories (Midcore & Strategy, Casual Gaming, Hyper Casual and Social Casino).

Key Takeaways

  • Prepare for a perfect storm of marketing conditions. Moderate increases in costs and impressive double-digit conversion rates indicate that users still need some convincing early in the funnel, but they are willing to pay, play and stay around—particularly if the sub-category offers a habit-forming core loop.
  • Competition heats up but summer months could give you the edge. A strategy to target users in the summer months from July to September can pay dividends. It’s during this period that the install-to-in-app conversion rate (16.0%) hits its second-highest point and the cost to acquire a new user who makes an in-app purchase hits a low of $27.09.
  • Don’t just play it safe in mature markets; explore untapped opportunities in APAC and Europe. North America may be a textbook model for robust growth in the mobile gaming apps market, but the data also reveals several countries where potential is huge while the costs are not. Russia, in particular, stands out as a country that embraces Casual and Social Casino games offering insanely affordable CPIs and eye-watering install-to-registration rates. Japan also merits a closer look, showing the highest interest and commitment to Casual games and a healthy appetite for Hyper Casual. Finally, EMEA—specifically Germany and the U.K.—is a region that offers lower costs and a healthier retention curve for Midcore & Strategy games.
  • Social Casino has staying power & Hyper Casual has users hooked. Day 1 retention is highest for Social Casino (32.2%) and Hyper Casual (32.7%) games, but it’s Social Casino that maintains momentum into Day 30. But retention rates for three sub-categories (Casual, Hyper Casual and Midcore & Strategy) narrow at Day 7 and again on Day 14, indicating that audiences for these games are equally engaged, and, perhaps, equally receptive to campaigns and messaging that nudge them to return to the game and play more often.

The mobile gaming apps market continues to thrive, but that’s no guarantee your business will ride the tide. View and download the report here and get more insights, know the latest trends and benchmarks on 2019 mobile gaming apps to keep you at the top of your game.

Posted by:


In 2018, there were more than 4 billion mobile devices – both smartphones and tablets – in circulation worldwide. In mature markets, many people own more than one device, while in emerging countries such as India and the Philippines, where the internet is mostly mobile, a large segment of the population can only access the web through a mobile device.

by Liz Rustia

AppAnnie assesses the performance of several app rankings, macro trends, and a number of industries including mobile marketing, shopping and retail, travel, gaming, social networking, media and entertainment, banking and fintech, video streaming, dating and more. The report also looks at the time spent on social media, mobile games or videos, discovering that people in many developed countries such as Canada and the United States spend nearly three hours a day staring at a mobile screen, while in some emerging markets such as Indonesia, that cumulative daily period can surpass 4 hours.

View the full report here.

Here are the key points to consider and worth applying to one’s business:

  1. In-app subscriptions are booming
  2. People are spending more and more time in apps
  3. Apps can be the core revenue generator for business
  4. Consider using in-app advertising
  5. Create content regularly

 

  1. In-App Subscriptions Are Booming

The top 5 most lucrative non-gaming apps of 2018 all contained in-app subscriptions. Since 2016, the 120% growth in spend in non-gaming apps has been fueled by these subscriptions.

  1. People are spending more and more time in apps

With time spent in apps still on the rise (we spent 50% more time in mobile apps in 2018 than we did in 2016), there’s still a huge market to take advantage of and establish a business in.

 

  1. Apps can be the core revenue generator for business

In markets like the US, Canada, and the UK, key indicators of mobile user engagement such as sessions, time spent, and consumer spend, are all showing continual growth rates.

Entertainment apps are seeing huge growth, and since 2016, in-app spend for entertainment (video streaming, music streaming, or other paid content) has grown by 460%.

  1. Consider using in-app advertising

AppAnnie predicts that 60% more apps will monetize through in-app advertisements in 2019, and there are more and more advertising platforms available to app publishers. Despite the growing popularity of in-app subscriptions, in-app advertising should remain an important way to generate revenue from an app.

  1. Create content regularly

AppAnnie’s report highlights that time in apps isn’t spent in a continuous session, but consists of “micro-moments” throughout the day.

According to The State of Mobile Report, micro-moments happen across many industries. Examples of micro-moments include checking emails, browsing news articles, or checking online banking.

If your app contains regularly updated content that your audience enjoy, it’s highly likely that they’ll regularly check your app to for relevant updates in these micro-moments.

“Mobile is no longer an add-on channel—it is the engine fueling digital transformation,” said Theodore Krantz, CEO, App Annie. “The State of Mobile 2019 report unlocks the potential of mobile for businesses in all stages of mobile transformation. The insights delivered in this report are unparalleled and inform the strategy every company needs to deliver winning consumer experiences.”

AppAnnie is not the only source for key statistics either. Take advantage of the opportunity, it’s never too late to create a mobile app for your business.

Posted by:


Native apps have exclusively become an integral part of smartphones in the last few years. In fact, you will find Native apps being developed especially for a specific operating system. It supports software and hardware of different types of the operating system in the form Android, iOS, Windows as per its specific needs. It has the capability to gel perfectly with the newly launched technology. For instance, the camera and GPS applications have the ability to take advantage of the latest tech invention in the industry of smartphones. 

by Nikunj Shingala

When it comes to non-native applications, they either get wrapped into a web application or compile down into codes. There are several benefits and drawbacks of every procedure but here we are going to discuss the advantages of Native apps procedure which you must keep in mind during the app development process.

Below mentioned are the benefits of native mobile app development services, take a look:

  1. Secure & Reliable

Proactive security is one of the best features of a native application. These applications even provide remote management of applications on individual devices. When it comes to Web application development, it depends upon different browsers and technologies in the form of HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS. But when it is about native mobile applications, it helps you with complete assurance and security of your data. Being developed for a specific platform, Native applications are responsive and very fast and are compiled with the use of core programming language platforms and APIs.

  1. Performance

When it comes to speed, anything short of lightning speed is slow in today’s era. Especially when it comes to software and hardware usage, slow speed becomes a big pain to have. There have been many applications developed with the use of HTML5 and it didn’t provide the speed one was looking for. For instance, LinkedIn and Facebook invested quite heavily in HTML5 but with poor results they came back to the native application as it helped them enhance the application performance big time. Speed literally showed a huge difference and it benefited them with excellent response.

  1. Easy To Develop

The developers will get the assistance of SDK and all other tools with which the native app can be developed with ease. One can develop native apps with IDE ecosystem where a professional developer can get their native application built without any kind of glitches. Android and iOS platforms support all the tools with which not only one can design their application but also test before getting it published online. You will get a good range of tools in both Android and Xcode platforms with which you will be able to use a different type of hardware features for your needs and requirements. You will not be assisted with these type of features in cross development and web platforms. 

  1. Compatible Interface

Customer’s UI and UX expectations are fulfilled with native applications. It looks and feels the same as default applications with common icons and buttons. You do have the option to change to older version again but it gets even worse and will certainly not be easy to use. So, this shows how with native mobile app development, you get easy to use application which can be worked without any kind of complications.  

  1. Access the Full Feature Set of Devices

The native applications are feasible and can easily connect with USB, Bluetooth, GPS, camera,  and other device hardware. In fact, some of the features will help you with double touch, zoom, multi-touch and even more. The response of native application is more fluid with gestures like swipes and pinches. The design and functionality might differ with a different model but you will be able to avail complete access of these features with native applications. You will not be able to access such features when it comes to non-native applications. It makes it easy to understand with the use of unique features as similar to default or inbuilt applications. You will feel much more engaged with native applications when compared to other apps because of the interactive feature. 

So, this shows the advantages of using native mobile application development. It gives you a lot more control and security than any other applications. You will never have anything to complain about the user experience as the applications are designed according to the devices which can surely help you with a lot of support. So, you must stick to native applications and get their design attributes into work which can surely help you avail the best of experience. 

 

Nikunj Shingala is a CEO and co-founder at Webs Optimization Software Solution which is successfully delivering services in the realm of UI/UX design, web development, mobile app development, and enterprise solution. He’s enthusiastic blogger and his writing interest includes web and mobile app development technologies, startup ideas and strategies.

 

 

Posted by:


Mobile app deep linking is a great way to improve the user experience & also offer the very best user experience, but make sure that the customer’s links connects direct to WebPages where there are no logins required. Mobile app deep linking is the practice of using a URI link to specific pages or locations within a mobile app. It may be utilized in a variety of ways via notifications, email, SMS, social networking, etc. Website to App, App to App, Social Media to App, Search Result to App (using app indexing), Mobile Phone Search to App, Ad to App, E-mail to App and SMS to App etc. Deep linking indirectly increase user engagement. If you want, to be directed on a particular page or company’s Facebook Profile page.

by Ashish Goyal

Traditional Deep Links

Conventional Deep Links directs allow the users to displays app with the help of the app URL. It can be embedded in various channels such as emails, WebPages, social media articles, etc. and save a lot of time of the consumers by directing to specific and relevant content. The best benefit of mobile app deep linking is that it serves with relevant information without making them browse through different screens. They can access the content, simply by clicking on the hyperlink. For instance, when you’ve connected to something on your app from a website or a social media post, the users will be immediately directed to that specific location rather than the home screen of your app.

Improve Customer Engagement, Usage and Retention

By using the concept of deep linking, we can enhance customer participation and utilization. Additionally, it helps in re-engaging clients who’ve installed the app but haven’t visited it for quite a long moment. The users are approached through push notifications, which take them straight to the pages offering a range of interesting services and products, enabling users to re-engage together with the app.

Fetch a Higher Installation Rate

Now, if you link your app with the search results, your app will appear on the Google search results page. Clicking on the link will direct the users into the app store and they’ll download it before assessing the particular page on the app.

Establish a Link between Two apps

With heavy linking, you may set a connection between two apps easily. For instance, if you’ve got two gaming apps and one is a sequel to another, you can easily create a profound connection for directing people who have finished the first to the second app. This will allow your customers to conserve their time on searching for the sequel in the app shop and then downloading it.

Strengthen Your Marketing Campaign

It is possible to use the process of mobile app deep linking to drive higher earnings and earnings for your business. You may make a marketing campaign in which you’re providing a special discount of 20% on merchandise to a select group of users and send them along with deep links which direct them to the particular pages from where they are able to instantly purchase it.

Give Insight to Campaign Usefulness

The fact that deep links can pass data can basically assist you in knowing the effectiveness of different marketing campaigns launched by you personally. It is simple to learn about the resources, i.e. ads, social media articles, SMS, emails, etc.

Types of portable deep linking

Standard deep linking

Users direct connect to a particular part of your app with URI. The shortcoming with them is that they’ll only work if the user has the app installed on their apparatus. Otherwise, they will show the error page to the user.

Contextual deep linking

These can serve the functions of the above two kinds of deep linking, but also allow for more precise tracking and much better relevancy to customers. It’s more helpful for both developers and users; these links pass information to app through setup and allow not just better attribution but also personalized on boarding.

How Mobile Deep Linking Matters

Businesses now realize the worth of mobile deep linking to user experience, forcing engagement, improving the consumer on boarding process, promoting their apps, and much better tracking advertising campaigns.

Enhance the User Experience

Users are able to more easily access page through deep links, with essentially no navigation. They also function to specific screens to your app instead of the home screen; thus, if you are linking to something in your app from social media, a cell website, etc. users can navigate effortlessly to that content.

Re-Engage Users

When a user has your app installed but has been inactive for a period of time, you may use deep linking to guide them to particular content to promote usage, rather than the generic home screen. By way of instance, you might re-engage an individual by sending them a push notification that connects to an exclusive arrangement, a new attribute, or something different that will incentivize them to participate with the program again. Based upon your monetization strategy, deep linking can help to drive revenue and increase sales.

Boost App Discoverability

Google indexes mobile app deep hyperlinks, meaning that app content can show up in search engine results pages as a website. This raises the odds of users finding your app through hunt. Deep linking must think about the data hierarchy, structure, and logic of the app.

To make the experience easy, you want to ensure that deep links take users straight to the content with no logins needed. If you fail to define your architecture of the app, it is going to result in a poor user experience. Deep linking has become a vital part of good mobile app. The capability to improve the user experience, improve apps discoverability, increase downloads and retention, and even drive earnings make mobile deep linking valuable from both app developer and user standpoint.

Ashish Goyal is a Digital Marketing Specialist at Xtreem Solution, a leading mobile app development company. You can hire app developer form our dedicated professional team or developers. He loves to pen down his understanding and knowledge in a simplified and engaging manner. He is an early adopter, likes to stay up to date with the latest trends in the mobile and web industry, and add value to the organization. Besides this, He is fond of reading books, writing short stories, EDM music and football lover.

 

 

 

Posted by:


Millions of mobile applications are available to download on the App Store. But, only a few are successful and the rest of them are going through a cut-throat competition to increase app download and drive potential business opportunities. Undoubtedly, user experience is the key to boost app installs. Do you agree? And, it is a widely accepted fact that engaging user experience can be delivered through the native iOS app development.

Moreover, while considering iOS, one cannot ignore the significance of Android platform. Hence, it is important to pick the right technology that delivers a native-like experience on iOS platform and perform effectively on Android too.

This compatibility can be achieved through a cross-platform technology. Flutter is the best choice for iOS developers to build an app that delivers a delightful experience to the users.

Let’s have detailed insights on what Flutter is all about and how it helps in developing robust iOS applications.

Flutter – All You Need to Know about the Technology

It is an open-source and multi-platform mobile app SDK developed by Google. Flutter allows developers to build iOS and Android apps using similar codebase. These days, React Native technology is gaining immense popularity amongst developers.

Flutter can also be used as React Native at the initial. It will support all React Native features in the near future. Due to this reason, large scale companies like Alibaba have started developing mobile applications using this technology.

It is a powerful cross-platform technology that allows for building highly customized mobile applications without compromising on the quality.

Are you eager to explore the impacts of Flutter on iOS app development? Here we go to explore why developers should give prominence to the technology.

Why iOS Developers Should Select Flutter over Native iOS App Development?

#1. Technical Architecture

Flutter and native iOS development are completely different from each other when it comes to technical architecture, as they belong from two entirely unique platforms. Native iOS development tools were developed by Apple while Flutter is openly developed by Google.

Programming Language

The only exception to this is Swift programming language and some other libraries available in Apple’s Github. Flutter allows for iOS app development using the Dart programming language while native iOS uses Swift or Objective-C.

Native iOS applications are developed using Swift that is why they provide fast and slick performance. Whereas the dart technology has a few awesome features such as a rich library, powerful typing, async and generics to build an application.

Dart records the required code of an application using the tree shaking compiler. Moreover, Dart framework does not need to communicate with the native modules. The technology enables you with a rich library to choose and use widgets from.        

Integrated Development Environment (IDE)

Flutter and native iOS are using different IDEs too. To build native iOS applications, iOS developers use Xcode. On the other hand, Flutter uses IntelliJ Idea, Android Studio, or a text editor like Sublime Text or Atom to develop an app.

#2.UI Design Elements

The user interface design of iOS application takes a lot of time. To create native iOS applications, the platform offers a UIKit that provides complete support for printing, animation, drawing, and documentation. Moreover, it contains event-driven interfaces with a variety of gesture support.

UI elements of Flutter are quite different from native iOS tools. Flutter apps run in its framework and rendering engine. iOS developers can accelerate app development cycle using the widgets offered by Flutter. It allows to create tricky UI/UX using any of the widgets. Moreover, widgets and layouts designed using the Flutter are pixel perfect.

In short, Flutter UI is a tree of stateless or stateful widgets that allows to design complex UIs and supports both Cupertino for iOS and Material Components for Andoird.

#3. Accelerated Development

Flutter is not a web technology but it helps developers to build the iOS application faster. Instead of using traditional compilers, it allows you to use the dynamic scripting language to leverage experience of a great performance of compiled languages.

While adopting Flutter, you can access compile mode and interpreted mode of Dart programming language. The compile mode allows iOS developers to compile an app down to native machine code before they plan the application launch. Awesome features of Dart technology ensure the next-generation mobile app development with amazing experiences.

#4. Boost Productivity of iOS Developers

To develop a native iOS application, developers need to use Xcode and other native frameworks offered by Apple. Whenever they make changes on the app and update the code, they have to re-build the app or 3rd party dependencies in some cases to view the changes in the devices or simulator. It is a very time-consuming process for developers.

Flutter, being an open source platform, allows developers to build the app faster and increase their productivity. Google’s Hot Reload feature makes Flutter different from other platforms by allowing programmers to make small significant changes in the app, in a very fast and easy way. It connects designers and developers in order to improve collaboration between them and speed up the development cycle.

#5. CI/CD Assistance

Due to continuous integration and delivery practices, developers can complete the iOS applications quickly. Apple offers Xcode server for CI/CD of iOS applications. It is not scalable for the larger team.

To deliver scalable services, Apple can use BuddyBuild but in the near future they will need the support of native CI/CD. Currently, iOS developers are using Fastlane and Jenkins to perform their in-house tasks or they outsource this activity to cloud service providers.

Flutter has tied up Nevercode and developed Codemagic, one of the best CI/CD solutions. Codemagic can build, detect, test and package the Flutter apps without any configuration.

And The Winner Is Flutter…

Flutter is a relatively new technology and allows iOS developers to build an app within a short time period and a limited budget. It allows to build iOS apps with great UI and unique customizable features. Faster app development also results in cost reduction and improved time to market of the app.

When it comes to choosing from Flutter and native iOS development, it is hard to make the right decision. Though Flutter has some amazing features, it is not a perfect platform. A lot of improvements are expected from the technology in the near future. But, Flutter allows for building an app that looks native and slick. Thus, if you are an iOS developer, you can’t ignore this platform. Also, businesses should consider it as the first choice to develop their iOS applications.

Sagar holds the position of Chief Technology Officer at Credencys Solutions Inc., a mobile app development company. He is responsible for all the technical operations, as well as leading the company’s revolutionary offerings. He is helping companies navigate the Digital journey in an Agile environment. Share your app idea at sagar@credencys.com.
 
Sagar has two main areas of focus – Technology and Processes.  He has worked in leadership positions in various Fortune 500 companies and has been instrumental in driving success through digital transformation. He is also an enthusiastic Agile Coach. 

Posted by:


An explosion of new consumer finance brands is transforming how people save, spend, and manage their money. Ninety-two million millennials will soon be in what Goldman Sachs calls their “prime spending years.” In aggregate, they command $1.3 trillion in annual spending. They have a deep antipathy to traditional financial institutions.

by Liz Rustia

A host of startups have emerged to capitalize on this trend. These companies are making it easier to make a budget, invest, and buy stocks, as well as to get loans and credit cards.

The leading apps in personal finance

Robinhood – buy and sell stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) without paying a commission. With the use of white space and referral program, Robinhood got million users in days.

Level Money – aims to track your “spendable” money—i.e. the amount that’s left over after you’ve paid all fixed expenses and set aside some money for savings. Effortless personal financial control and new models for financial services. Instead of categorizing transactions and tracking bank balances, Level empowers members to easily understand cash flow by automatically detecting income and fixed expenses from linked financial accounts.

Credit Karma – online personal-finance platform that lets you monitor your credit reports and scores for free and offers other tools and services based on your profile. Credit Karma provides free weekly updated credit reports and scores as well.

Stash – The Stash Invest app allows investors to start investing with as little as $5. Not only that, but Stash makes choosing investments extremely simple. They also have low fees at only $1 per month if your account has less than $5,000 or 0.25% per year if your account holds more than $5,000. 

Acorns – Painless saving by investing your spare change. The service is free and pricing starts at just $1 per month for pretty much everyone else. You can set up your Acorn app to automatically invest your savings without your even knowing about it.

Qapital – Qapital adds the option to automatically transfer money, based on rules you choose, to an FDIC-insured Wells Fargo account. The app also enables you to share your goals with your family, friends or teammates, to help you stay on track with those goals. So you can use peer pressure to continue your savings plan.

Mint and Mint Bills (formerly Check and before that Pageonce) – lets users link all of their financial accounts in one place and pay bills directly from the app. Allows users to track bank, credit card, investment, and loan balances and transactions through a single user interface, as well as create budgets and set financial goals.

Understanding the dynamics of user acquisition and growth

To build a successful personal finance management tool, it’s important to understand the dynamics of user acquisition and growth.

Building a product that people want is hard. It’s even harder when your target market would rather never think about what you’re trying to sell them — retirement, for example. (Bankrate found 83% of millennials don’t think they’ll ever retire: they simply “don’t think they’ll have the money” to do so.)

The result of getting your product right, however, can be exponential growth so fast it’s hard to wrap your mind around. Below are some examples on what they did to achieve their massive results.

  1. How to use pre-launch marketing to build trust and hype
    • How blog posts helped Mint get 20,000+ customers pre-launch
    • How Robinhood used an ingenious referral program to build a 1M+ customer waitlist
  2. How to show value during the first-run experience
    • The free tools Credit Karma uses to drive a sticky experience and bring 5M+ users from Google every month
    • How Mint returns 100+ lost hours to its users’ lives right away
    • The 3 questions Level Money asks users the first time they use the app
  3. How to design for the specific user you want
    • Robinhood’s clutter-free user interface design is flypaper for millennial audiences
    • How narrowing its feature roadmap helped Check get acquired for $360M
    • How the color green helped Mint convert more potential users
    • How Level Money designed a millennial-friendly, mobile-first experience
  4. How to monetize your users’ financial betterment
    • The $2B opportunity Mint found in preferred pricing
    • How Credit Karma built a $500M business by helping people
    • Why Qapital is building an all-in-one PFM suite
    • How Robinhood launched crypto and got a million new users in days
  5. How to productize personal responsibility
    • How recurring micro-transactions let Acorns do 17x the trading volume of Fidelity
    • Stash’s strategy around choice and how it helps them add 25,000 users a week
    • The behavioral science behind Qapital’s trigger-based investing
  6. How to turn sharing into self-improvement
    • The addictive referral program driving Robinhood’s continued growth
    • Stash teaches its users how to invest
    • Acorns’ rock-bottom customer acquisition costs as driven by non-viral referral

With patience, continuous user engagement and maximizing the tactics above ensure regular traffic to any apps. Still want to read more of how these companies strategized their success? Click here.

Posted by:


As different technologies continue to mount, Progressive Web Apps are set to signal technical progress and innovation in the mobile app development space. More importantly, unlike responsive web designs, these apps are seen seamlessly uniting desktop, mobile and app experiences.

by Serena Cooper

In simple words, PWAs are a rare combination of experiences that combine the best of the web as well as apps. Users who visit a browser tab for the very first time, without any additional installation required. Have you wondered why? Because it becomes more and more powerful as a user progressively builds a relationship with the app over time. Everything happens to load quickly, even on flaky networks, you can send relevant push notifications, also have an impressive icon on the home screen, and basically loads as a top-level, full-screen experience.

Core Aspects of PWA

  • Progressiveness- Works for every user
  • Responsive- To fit any form factor
  • App-like- Easy navigations
  • Independent connectivity- Users can work offline
  • Fresh- Transparency and always up-to-date
  • Safe- Served via TLS to avoid snooping
  • Easily discovered- Can be identified easily
  • Linkable- They’re zero-friction, zero-install, and easy to share.  

A site must fulfill three baseline criteria to qualify as a PWA on the web:

  • You need to be running on HTTPS
  • Need a Web App Manifest
  • You need a Service Worker

How Progressive Web apps came into existence?

Several years ago, tech giant Google came up with a rare comparison between top 1000 mobile apps vs. top 1000 mobile app properties (web). They basically wanted to study reach and user engagement. And the comparison showed a great disparity in user behavior. Mobile web reach seems to be remarkably higher than native app reach. While on the other hand, user engagement stats show that users tend to spend more time on mobile apps instead of the mobile web. PWA came into play where professionals can easily provide a native app like engaging experience to users on the mobile web.

Its benefits include

  1. Responsiveness: Unlike mobile apps, progressive web apps are highly responsive. In simple words, they auto adjust the layout depending on the device. So whether you are using a mobile or a laptop, desktop, PWA’s are capable of fitting any and every device.
  2. Security: Unlike traditional web apps, PWA’s are more secured. Being always served via HTTPs, one can believe that the app can is tamper proof and cannot be vandalized.
  3. Reliable network: It may quite interest you to know that Progressive Web Apps are the ones to rely on even when the network is shoddy as they can work offline. For instance, Konga, a leading e-commerce website in Nigeria managed to reduce 92% of the user data usage due to its Progressive Web App.
  4. Look and Feel– Being a normal user you won’t be able to spot any difference between PWA and the native app as they both exactly look and feels like a native app. In addition to this, PWA even provides similar features like push notification, integration with the system, display icon on the home screen and app drawer, etc.
  5. Easy Update– One of the most amazing aspects here is Progressive Web Apps are extremely easy to update. And since no app store works as a mediator, your users can enjoy the updated app as soon as you have updated it from your side.

Today PWAs are fully functional and installable on:

  • Android with most browsers, with Chrome offering the best experience
  • iOS with Safari
  • Chromebooks
  • Windows 10 from the Microsoft Store
  • Feature phones with KaiOS – a fork from Firefox OS – currently available for millions of users mainly in India

Some of the best examples of Progressive Web Apps

  1. AliExpress– I am sure you all must be well aware regarding the famous e-commerce site owned by the Alibaba Group. But what you may not know is that over a few years ago they converted their mobile site to a Progressive Web App. The primary objective was to turn non-app users into app users with the help of a mobile site. Unfortunately, things didn’t work as expected. Hence, they decided to invest in a cross-browser Progressive Web App, and the decision significantly enhanced the user experience and overall performance of the site. As a result,
    • 104% increase in conversions for new users
    • 2x more pages visited per session
    • 74% increase in time spent per session
  1. Flipkart– Another largest e-commerce site that recently updated to a Progressive Web App called Flipkart Lite. The app delivers fast and streamlined experiences to mobile users like never before. It may quite interest you to know that back in 2015, Flipkart temporarily shut down its mobile website and embraced an app-only strategy. Because they found difficulty to deliver an engaging web experience, mainly because more than half of their users were browsing through flaky or 2G networks. Times have changed now! With Flipkart Lite: we found
  • 70% increase in conversions
  • 40% higher re-engagement
  • 3x more time spent on site
  • 3x lower data usage
  1. BookMyShow– Who doesn’t know about one of the leading ticketing company in India. They developed a Progressive Web App in 2017 to replace their mobile site. The change broadened its customer base and increased conversions. Although, before PWA came into existence, 85% of transactions were carried out on mobile. After this, the firm was capable of offering a seamless ticket-booking experience to mobile users, without becoming a burden on their device’s storage and memory capabilities.
  2. Forbes– A top U.S. business magazine website that provides articles on finance, marketing, investment, and industry topics recently got converted into PWA. This led to an increase in load times and doubled engagement rates through the use of push notifications and an option to add the Progressive Web App to home screens.
  3. OLX- Being one of the largest online classified ads directory in both India as well as Pakistan, OLX required focusing on its mobile user experience. What they did was, they came up with PWAs featuring push notifications — just like a native app — and offered users an immersive, app-like experience on their mobile site. What happened next?
  • 250% increase in re-engagement
  • 80% decrease in bounce rates
  • 146% increase in CTR on Ads
  • 23% decrease in time taken for a page to be interactive

Author Bio

Serena Cooper a successful Technology Observer with 5 years of experience, also she has expertise in Website Design, Development, Online branding. Currently she is working with a Mobile app development company eTatvaSoft. She’s person with high spirit and fond of social activities.

 

Posted by:


The world today, the fast-paced, technology-driven, smartphone savvy world, it is expanding every second. Even as we speak right now. It expands by leaps and bounds. Mobile app development, as a result, is becoming more and more competitive with each passing day. As a rising organization, you need to stay ahead of your competition, which is why you need the best approach towards your app based startup.

by James Grills

Creating a successful mobile app needs not just a systematic approach but also financial management. With a little bit of caution and a meticulous approach, your app based startup cost can lower down.

Factors affecting application development costs

Mobile apps for startups are a crucial element and they come in a variety of sizes and types. Added with the functionalities and the UX they provide, their costs can waver up and down. There are a lot of intricacies determining the actual cost of a mobile app.

The following are some of the most significant factors that affect application development costs:

  • Your business model
  • The audiences and platforms you serve
  • The functionality your app offers
  • The UX and design
  • The development team

Of course, the costs are not restricted to just these factors, they are also dependent on certain hidden costs, but we will talk about them later.

  • Your business model

You, of course, want to get started with your application ASAP, but you should step back and think about the implications of hurrying. Once you have a definite idea about what you are trying to do and what steps are you supposed to take to achieve the same, only then should you be proceeding with your application development.

The business model here plays a major role in the same. Having a platform business model here is what you should be focussing on, similar to the lines of Airbnb, Snapchat, Uber, YouTube, etc.

Once you are done with this, you should now be focussing on detailing your application functionalities and how is it going to be interacting with your consumers in the end. Having a detailed idea about this is always going to be beneficial for you. If Uber would not have thought about this, it would not be a successful global cab service today. Uber thought it through and managed to connect all the riders to prospective drivers almost seamlessly. Focussing on the initials, therefore, is your best bet.

You can always go ahead and add more features in the later stages but having a basic efficient idea about your application is what is going to help you lower your mobile app development costs down.

Therefore, to sum this point up: Focus on the areas that form the basic premise of your application. Focus on the resources that are going to develop that basic premise from a mere idea to a real thing.

  • Audiences and platform

Creation of a successful mobile app also depends on the kind of audience and the kind of platform you are serving. Both of these combined do happen to add up to your app development costs.

Having a clear vision about your target audiences if going to define not jut the success ratio of your mobile app, but also its actual development cost. Before you go into the development procedure, sample a group out and look for people who would actually be interesting in buying your app, or anything in it. Creating a group of people to test your app on or just the basic idea is going to leave you with a brief idea about the people who fit your vision. If the vision looks great and successful, you should, of course, go ahead with the actual development process.

The same goes for the platform.

The platform you serve must also be kept in mind before you go ahead and determine the costs. This also entails hardware, battery, peripherals, network connectivity, device support, overall device performance, etc.

The concern about the platform further gets divided into two segments: Native and Hybrid.

While native applications are developed for a particular device, for example, an application specifically coded in the Swift language and caters only to iOS devices, Hybrid applications are cross-platform applications. Hybrid applications, thus, in turn, are less expensive as they can be built for multiple devices and platforms in one go.  

A brief summary of the point: Audiences and the kind of platform you choose play a heavy role in your app development costs. If the platform you choose does not support the application or the audiences you choose are not willing to invest in your app, your application is doomed, to begin with.

  • Application features and functionality

The kind of features and functionality your application offers to its users is another significant factor that determines app development costs. A simple application can be improved and bettered for the ultimate users by adding additional features and functions. However, this definitely leads to a rise in costs.

Most mobile apps that are willing to offer more functionalities, as a result of its coding process, tend to be highly placed in development cost graphs. Gaming apps are a great example the same. Gaming applications that provide users with multiple levels and simulations are higher on the price charts. The same goes for applications that have multiple sharing interfaces. 

The functionality of an app, however, is not restricted to the above-mentioned facts. It goes beyond them in certain cases. This includes: the capacity to have in-app purchases, integrating social media, launch costs, server backups, introducing new technology, user customizations, etc.

To sum it up: the number of functions and features your applications hosts, the more is its cost going to be in the end!

  • Design and UX

If it does not appeal to the eyes, it is not going to appeal at all! This is very true in cases. Designing a great app takes a lot of innovation, creativity, enthusiasm, and energy. A breathtaking design is what people need when they are looking forward to using an application. Visually pleasing applications, though a budget breaker is what everyone favors. Ultimately, a well-designed application is what users are most likely to use and refrain from keeping their smartphones away!

For a great design, an application requires the following basics:

An app icon, a good screen ratio, interface elements and buttons, and other engaging user features.

However, it is not just the design alone that takes away your app development budget. Added to the design the UX also plays a key role in the same. Both emerge out as clear winners when budgeting for an application.

Of course, a $0.99 app is not going to be anything like a $100 app!

UX forms a structural pillar of your application. How the users are interacting with your app is what determines its viability in the market.

Given the price range and your budget constraints, you can achieve brilliance with teamwork and passion. Compelling designs can work in your application’s favor at any cost. All it takes is the people who are looking to throw in their expertise.

To brief the point up: Having a competitive design works wonders for your application. Added to it its UX, your application can stand out; provided you shell out a few extra bucks for each step here.

  • Development team

The people who are ultimately developing your mobile app determine the cost of your application development process as well. For a startup, you would, of course, want to keep the cost as low as possible because of fundings and other issues. However, your costs can vary depending on the kind of work you are seeking.

The development team costs are as imperative as the cost of designing and functionality.

The one thing everyone should keep in mind before choosing an app development team is that cheap development teams might have proven good for some, might not be great every single time.

The process of hiring people who can develop your application adds up to your overhead costs as well, if you yourself cannot build the application.

There are three ways development teams are formed though.

  • There are offshore teams
  • There are freelance app developers, and
  • There are established app development companies.

All these routes include hiring people.

  • As far as offshore app development teams are concerned, they are working for you on a part-time basis, which is why they are cheap. You could hire anyone anywhere in the world, as remote as possible and you could get your work done. It is as simple as that.

However, this could result in the demeaning quality of work. You are not actually supervising the team at every step, which could lead to a conflict of interests.

Though million-dollar applications are not built this way, this sure is a great way for a startup or any workplace to outsource their app development process.

  • Freelancers, like an offshore app development team, are also great options for app development. They are cheap if they are not experts. Of course, expert freelance application developers will always come at a cost. However, anyone who is still trying to establish their name and image in the industry and is great at what they have done in the past might suit your budget as well. You never know!
  • A full-service mobile app development company, though expensive, is always a great option for anyone and everyone looking to expand into the market with a mobile app!

Certain mobile app development companies are innovative and experts at what they do, and apart from offering you with servicers rendering the application development process, might as well offer you services related to its designing, promotion and other app development and marketing prospects. Experienced teams are somewhat hard to find, but not impossible. A great app development company will have the resources to serve you with. They will have the potential to meet your desires. The costs sure are high as compared to the above two options, but the option is not really bad.

To sum it up: There are three major ways to meet application developers: either through offshore development teams, freelancers or full-fledged app development companies. It all depends on the kind of developer you are choosing and your meticulous eye to screen for the best. Trust your gut feeling and instincts.

Hidden costs

We will mention the hidden costs of your application development process in brief.

The factors that affect the ultimate budget of your app based startup are

  • The costs and time taken to test the application out.
  • The costs of protecting your intellectual property, including copyrights, trademarks and patents.
  • Marketing your mobile app
  • The cost that goes into launching the same
  • The cost of getting it listed on the desired app store or play store.
  • Administration and technical support costs, if any.
  • Data security costs
  • Application maintenance costs

The total cost

This brings us to the end; what exactly is going to be your cost?

The actual number and figures always vary. They depend on your needs and desires and your business model and the features you need. Depending on the kind of factors and the complexity of the factors mentioned above goes in the actual development process, the app development costs can be determined. Added to it the hidden costs, the costs no one really considers in the first estimates also end up adding up to your app.

Author Bio: James Grills is a technical writer with a passion for writing on emerging technologies in the areas of mobile application development and IoT technology. He is a marketing advisor – currently associated with Cumulations Technologies a mobile app development company in India.

 

 

Posted by:


You have finished your app — everything from its codes to its features. What’s next is releasing it to the public. However, you need to make it a successful app by gathering and garnering a lot of potential and active users of your mobile application.You have finished your app — everything from its codes to its features. What’s next is releasing it to the public. However, you need to make it a successful app by gathering and garnering a lot of potential and active users of your mobile application.

by Violet Smith

You need to get a significant amount of attention to your app so that it will pique the attention of your target users and audience. However, according to Localytics, In 2016, around 23% of app users abandoned it after the first use. You need to work out on the engagement of the app to its users and retention of its users since this is very critical to your mobile application.
 
In this article, we will introduce you to ten different practices you can apply to your app to increase your engagement rate and user retention.you can apply to your app to increase your engagement rate and user retention.

1. User-Friendly App

Firstly, you need to make your app a user-friendly one. It is deemed to be the easiest way to create higher user retention. You cannot do that if you do not understand your users well. It is essential to know your users’ needs for the app and information about them. After that, you can integrate those in the app. Always put your users first in the experience of the app, always think what the best angle of a specific feature that will cater them in the best way possible is.

Another thing to make your user-friendly app is creating a simple design for it and giving it great usability. The design of the app should be straightforward, up to the point that even non-techie persons will not have difficulty in having a great experience in your application. A user-friendly app is essential, especially that you are catering a pool of mobile users. According to RedStag Fulfillment, mobile usage nowadays is responsible for over 50% of market share, more than desktop computer users and tablet users. The mobile app is the new way to boost e-commerce conversion rate and the engagement of users and customers.

2. Simple and Easy Onboarding Process

 If your app needs an account from your users before giving them a great experience, make the process very easy and simple. Make sure that the whole course of filling up forms is not very intrusive and enough to not provide their personal information to your app. Avoid asking for information that you will not really use in the whole time they are engaging with you. For example, you may not need the customer’s last names. Just ask for their usernames, email addresses, and passwords. You can also allow registration from social media sites such as Facebook and Gmail.

Lastly, it may be better if you let the user explore the app itself and the whole application should allow your user to create an account. All of these should be done in the most casual and fun way to avoid your users not signing up in your app.

3. Proper App Functionality

Another thing to consider is the application’s quality when it comes to overall functionality and performance. You can achieve this by testing your app every once in a while. Bugs are always a thing in apps after updates, so testing it will minimize the occurrence of bugs in your app before releasing it to your users and audiences. It is like a factory where you have a quality assurance officer to always look at the quality of the product if it passes the standards. Same with the application, you need to assure that it passes the standards before letting your users download it.

With this, you can have higher engagement and retention rates because there is minimal app crash, faster load times, and other features working well.

4. Smart Push Notification

Push notifications are one of the best ways to create lasting user retention; however, it should be used smartly. According to Localytics, there is a 9.3 times more engagement of people who enabled push notifications than those who do not. You should be smart with this. Just like the onboarding point, you need to show your app’s worth which can lead to your users signing up for your notifications. You can tell why notifications are essential to give the best experience to them.

Notifications should be done as relevant as possible. Also, it should always consider the timing. For instance, you do not want to annoy your users when sending notifications; you need to send it in the most optimal time according to your user’s demographics, not when they are sleeping. The frequency of the notifications should be minimized and ensuring that every notification should show value. Lastly, targeted notifications should not occur in bulk. You can do this by personalizing your notification to your users.

5. Social Media Synchronization

 With all of the different trends and increase in the usage of the younger generations, social media is the key to market your mobile app. You can not only engage with your users inside the application but also outside, specifically through social media. You can also integrate social media networks in your application, just like Spotify.

Social media for your mobile app is an innovative way to connect with different people for your app. Content sharing can be done in social media networks to make your app known to many people, especially if you are targeting the app to specific target audiences of your app. You can manage your social media by creating a social media strategy for it and plan everything on how to engage and retain your users using these networks.

6. User Surveys for App

User surveys are done to gather feedback from your application users. It is a good way to engage with them because you are talking about how you can make their experience better and make them retain in your application.

You can use in-app surveys or link from your app or social media channels to a survey that can quickly help them in answering. Never forget to acknowledge what your users are saying about your app, ensure that you will assist in creating your app a better one from the feedback.

You can start making changes by compiling first all the feedback and check if all of those are applicable for change. You can also pick whatever is the most compelling feedback that can amp up your user experience.

7. App Localization

Localizing your app boosts growth and conversion rates, which can translate to engagements and retention from your users. You should know where you should focus your app on. It is better to focus it on where your app has the most users. Research is the way here. You need to do a lot of research on how you can make your app localized in a certain country.

Another question is how you can localize your app, in Android or iOS? iOS has a specific place only where you can release your app. However, in Android, there are many choices to launch your app. Every decision from here should be the best one that will not make your process in launching your app a living nightmare. Localizing an app is an excellent way to consider the culture variation around a world, making it targeted to one culture will ensure success to your app.

8. App Benefits in App Store Listing

Your users can access your app by downloading it in their operating system’s app store. You can start selling your app there and show all the benefits your app can give to them.

You should do acknowledge their struggle in today’s technology; from there, you can insert your app and how it can easily help your users in their everyday lives. Most users are thinking about if the app you are offering is worth it or not, which is the perfect opportunity to give persuasive texts and messages to show your app’s worth even before downloading. Always persevere in app stores and continue to engage with different people into downloading your application.

9. App Update Notification

When your app updates in your user’s mobile device, you need to let them know what is covered in the new update. Show all functionalities and features that are updated in the recent version of your app. It is important to show these to show that they are benefiting in your app after updating, giving them the best experience every after the app update.

Many people are signing up for automatic updates, but some are not. You need to let them sign up for this by giving notifications in other forms. Email marketing is one way where you can send the updates in their emails and make them change their mind in updating your app automatically.

10. Regular UI Update

You should always update your UI, even if it is in the best form for your customers. Look at your app as an ever-evolving entity that is better when always updated. Base your UI updates from your user surveys and feedback to your app. When you apply what they are telling you, it can raise the engagement rate and retention rate of your users since their feedback is heard and given action.

UI and UX should always be new and fresh for your users. Fresh views and experiences do not fail in getting new users and strengthen the retention rate of your current users.

Violet Smith is a marketing communications specialist who would like to share her knowledge through her blogs. She writes with the goal of spreading awareness on the topics that she writes about. Outside of writing, her other passion is shopping.