Credits : Windowsitpro

Companies sometimes need a quickly-built mobile app to fit a “right now” need, such as a last-minute customer service order-entry form app or something that will let customers easily sign up for newsletters. 

But instead of having to assign the creation of these kinds of basic apps to already overloaded developers, which can delay them from working on more business-centric development projects, an increasing number of IT vendors are providing tools that let non-developers assemble basic apps with a few clicks. Using these “low code” tools, non-developers can relatively easily assemble a collection of ready-made components into working apps using what are essentially the Lego building blocks of software.

This low-code market segment has been getting more attention in the last several years from vendors including Mendix, OutSystems, Appium and Pega Systems, as well as from Red Hat, which is already well-known due to its roots in its Linux and middleware applications, application development tools and other products and services. Red Hat’s low code product is called the Red Hat Mobile Application Platform. 

In the past, these low-code platforms have often been given a cold shoulder by some developers because they didn’t allow granular and complete control for app creation. 

Nowadays, however, that could be changing as some experienced application developers are finding uses for such tools for some for their own coding projects, Phil Simpson, the  JBoss product marketing manager at Red Hat told ITPro.com. One reason for the change in attitude is that the latest versions of the tools allow developers to switch between the actual code and the automated development features, allowing them to choose how an application is built. Previous versions didn’t easily allow steps that diverged from the processes included in the low-code platforms. 

“Developers certainly like to have control over the code that is ultimately delivered, and many of the earlier low-code, BPM [and other products] tended to hide the actual code behind graphical tools,” said Simpson. The newer generation of low-code tools is smarter and lets developers insert custom code and perform other tasks that weren’t possible in prior versions, he said.

“The intent is to give the developer the same degree of control over the code as they would have with the tools they currently use, but enable them to generate UIs and business logic much more quickly,” said Simpson.

By providing rapid app creation platforms for their development teams, companies can potentially increase developer productivity by enabling them to manipulate high level features such as user interfaces, business rules and process steps, while only writing code where needed for customization, according to Simpson. “Our BPM and mobile platforms include tools to create all these models and generate executable code from them.”

Leonie McGloin, Red Hat’s program manager for mobile products, said the company is seeing more decision-making about mobile apps development coming from the business side of companies nowadays, instead of just from IT operations. That’s where the low-code platforms can help to allow simple component-based creation of some apps by business staff members to free up developers to concentrate on mission-critical applications.

“More businesses are looking to the business side to solve some of a company’s problems,” she said. “It has led to the need for more self-service, giving the business side more flexibility to do their own coding.”

Much of the reason for the shift is the drive for digital transformation in business, said McGloin. “Mobile apps, they need to get to market faster. To do that, companies need more agile DevOps practices,” which can be provided through low-code platforms.

Red Hat has been offering these tools for what it calls “citizen developers” since it acquired FeedHenry in October of 2014 to add rapid app creation tools to the company’s Linux and middleware applications, application development tools and other products and services. By acquiring cloud-based FeedHenry, Red Hat aimed to bolster its tools for the onslaught of mobile devices that require new apps and services for users. 

At the same time, the low code tools won’t work for every development project, said McGloin. “In the context of the enterprise, there can be a lot of complexity on the back end,” but developers can still use these platforms as elements of what they are creating, she added.

“You can quickly create a mobile form with drag and drop components,” she said, but “when it comes to integrating an app into a legacy back end, that’s a little tougher and you need to work with IT.”

In the end, “I think the bottom line always is to consider the use case,” she said.

Credits : Mobilebusinessinsights

We are entering a new phase of mobile development and innovation with profound implications on business and our daily lives. It will be a transformative time where cognitive technology available through connected, high-speed networks (such as 5G), augments all our activities, providing deeper understanding and insights that have never been visible before. This knowledge will come to us in context — that is, where and when we need it— and will be available through a multitude of devices. Some of these devices are already on the market, while others are only in the vision stage. Many of the things we think of today as being immobile will require mobile development to make them accessible from anywhere. As processing capability shrinks in physical size, we can embed it into virtually everything — even our medicine.

The first phase of mobility provided the foundation for the coming day of mobile pervasiveness. It introduced hardware with the functionality of many different devices into a single device: a smartphone that could not only make calls, but also send emails and surf the web. The functionality came to us in the form of apps on our phones, then our tablets and now our cars and appliances. For businesses, mobile was used primarily as a channel to transact, inform or communicate with customers and employees. Most businesses today are in this phase of mobile development, although the range of apps is now exponentially greater than those available on the first smartphones.

The “new reality”

The greater opportunity for business and innovation resides in the phase that turns the power of mobile into the essence of what they do and how they do it. Maribel Lopez calls this the “New IT” in her blog, “Moving Beyond Digital Transformation To A New Cognitive Contextual World.” I call it the “new reality.”

When everything becomes mobile, actions, behavior and expectations evolve. Simply reflect on how mobile has already changed our lives. We no longer need a TV to watch a movie, a library to do research or a classroom to learn a language. We can access and see into our homes no matter where we are in the world. Bring into the picture analytics, cognitive technology and augmented reality (AR), and the future suddenly becomes more interesting. Information overlaid on any surface will reveal relevant information through words, images and multiple dimensions when and where it is needed. Not only will you be able to see into the refrigerator without opening the door, but you will also be able to know what has expired and replace it using a voice prompt. With enough experience and embedded learning, the refrigerator might one day restock itself, make product recommendations to suppliers and be our nutritional advisor.

Imagine a retail business that maintains zero inventory. Products are simply images available to try on or try out by merely putting on a pair of glasses or by looking into an augmented mirror. Tell the mirror your preferences and voila, the order is custom-designed and delivered to your home. According to Technology Review, Wayfair, Lowe’s and IKEA are already experimenting with virtual and augmented realities to bring this capability to life. Apply similar thinking to the production line and defects revealed by simply looking at the object with a mobile device. Defects are fixed using instructional overlays directly on the object, or better yet, with a simple command of “Yes, fix it.”

Enabled through a foundation of mobility, the field for business innovation has never been richer. And, when driven by cognitive insights, it has never been smarter. What does this mean for your business, product and way of working? Consider the three following strategies to effectively jump-start mobile development:

1. Approach everything you do with a mobile mindset

Mobility is no longer for customer transactions only. It needs to be envisioned and planned for the entire enterprise. Make everything mobile-friendly — your entire value chain and all stakeholders, your stores, your employees, your customers, your product and the machinery and processes you use to design, manufacture, ship and deliver that product.

2. The device is nothing without the data

The value of mobility increases exponentially when you bring in analytics and cognitive computing. It changes the device from being a channel to being a personal luminary that crunches quantum amounts of data into relevant and valuable nuggets of information.

3. Think in mobile speed

As much as it hurts to say, time is not on your side. Things are changing too quickly to wait for proven solutions. If you wait, your competitors will steal the competitive advantage, transform their processes and make your customer experience irrelevant. Embrace new technologies and mobile development and imagine what they can do for your business.

There are no crazy ideas, just lack of execution. Welcome to the new reality!

Credits : Appdevelopermagazine

The transition from desktop to mobile computing is not a question of if, but when. According to Gartner, within the next five years, 70 percent of software interactions in enterprises will occur on mobile devices. Little wonder, then, that organizations that are just embarking on their mobile app development journeys can often be tempted to assume the voyage will be smooth sailing. After all, at the earliest stages their ambitions will likely be modest. Maybe they plan to start slow, with just one or two apps.

But not long after the ship has left port, an object looms in the waters ahead. “Nothing to fear,” the mobile project manager thinks. “My crew has navigated obstacles before.” Little does that manager realize that what looks like a minor hazard is but the tip of a much larger and more dangerous problem lurking beneath the surface. Before the project has time to change course, what started out as a leisurely cruise toward mobility has started to feel like a trip on the Titanic.

Melodramatic? Maybe. But the truth is that, much like that ill-fated cruise liner, far too many mobile initiatives have been sunk by lack of foresight. The pace of innovation is accelerating, yet if you rush full steam ahead into a mobility project without properly assessing the risks, you’re bound to run into trouble.

Iceberg ahoy!

In our Titanic / iceberg analogy, you can think of the part bobbing above the surface of the water as the mobile app itself. Most shops don’t run into much trouble there. Modern mobile development toolkits make it relatively simple to build multichannel apps that can be deployed to a variety of platforms, including Android, iOS and web.

Don’t be fooled, though. In today’s networked enterprise mobile apps, the much larger and riskier portion of the project lies beneath the surface, in the often-complex layer of interconnected services that make up the mobile backend. It is here where the real work happens – and unfortunately, it can be far too easy to underestimate just how much work will be involved in implementing it.

Judging by the UI alone, even a mission-critical enterprise app can seem deceptively simple. Such apps, however, typically need support from a myriad of backend services, ranging from authentication and identity management, to security and encryption, to data storage and retrieval, to integration with enterprise software like ERP systems or salesforce automation. As the complexity of the backend grows, an API management layer is probably in order, to help manage the overall lifecycle of the various components. All of these services require care and maintenance, further burdening IT and DevOps teams.

Further compounding the problem, it’s likely that the plan to start slow with one or two mobile apps was wishful thinking. As organizations of all sizes feel mounting pressure to achieve digital transformation mounting, demand for mobile apps increasingly comes from lines of business from across the organization. Before anyone realizes it, two mobile projects have become six, then six have become twelve…

It’s typically at this point that the hull of the mobile initiative really starts springing leaks. With multiple, uncoordinated mobile projects in the works, the organization’s total code base balloons to unmanageable size. Redundant coding efforts sap efficiency. In many cases, app dev teams will have made the mistaken assumption that existing middleware would meet their needs, only to find out that legacy web architectures are poorly suited to mobile. That sinking feeling soon sets in.

How to steer clear

Fortunately, there’s hope. As an industry, we’ve learned a lot since the early days of mobile app dev. By observing modern best practices, it’s possible to develop and deploy multichannel mobile apps in a way that’s not only efficient and consistent, but also low-risk – a methodology known as “app factory” style development.

One emerging pattern that’s enabling this approach is the use of model-driven development, a practice that will be familiar to enterprise application developers but has only recently been applied to mobile app dev. This development style uses software architectural models to abstract away the low-level complexities of programming, making it easier and faster to develop discrete application components.

These components can then be deployed as microservices that can then be composed into complete applications. The microservices architecture not only makes applications easier to deploy and scale, but it can also make them more secure by making it easier to patch and update individual components without service disruption.

Adopting these new methods can seem daunting. But fortunately these and other modern features are already available in modern mobile backend-as-a-service (MBaaS) platforms, such as Kony MobileFabric. By standardizing on such a platform across the organization, app dev teams can both minimize redundant efforts and concentrate on responding to changing business objectives, rather than the drudgework of maintaining a poorly integrated mobile backend.

The bottom line is that while too many mobile projects end up in Davey Jones’ locker, the journey to mobility needn’t be a doomed voyage. The sinking of the Titanic was the result of too much hubris; app dev teams shouldn’t make the same mistake. By correctly assessing the full scope of the task ahead, applying modern development methods, and choosing the right partners, it’s possible for organizations to avoid hidden hazards and keep their ongoing mobile initiatives for years to come.

Mobile web sites are a growing design issue. According to StatCounter GS, mobile web access has risen to 36.54% in the United States as of January 2017. Internationally, according to the same set of statistics, mobile phones have overtaken desktops as the primary means of accessing the internet by approximately 4%.

This means that companies seeking to reach customers need their sites to be easily read and navigated by smaller screens and devices that may not support Java or cookies. But what works best? And what should IT departments focus on when improving or developing mobile sites? Experts on the Forbes Technology Council have this to say:

1. Put Priority Content At The Top

Place high-priority content, such as phone numbers, address or directions, at the top of the website page, so that users can quickly get to it without having to scroll. Don’t fall into the trap of “stacking” low-priority content over high-priority content. – Andrew Kucheriavy, Intechnic

2. Foster An Environment Of Continuous Experimentation And Improvement

Good UI/UX is hard. Don’t imagine you’re going to get it right the first time. Experiment with alternatives as much as you can during development. Consider A/B testing technology that lets you run experiments to evaluate interface alternatives and to respond quickly to the findings. Implement continuous integration and deployment techniques that let you release improvements regularly. – Manuel Vellon, Level 11

3. Ask Users About What Works And What Doesn’t

It helps to know from people using it every day what works and doesn’t, so go straight to users and get their feedback. After all, you want people to use it, and there’s no better perspective than those that already do. – Chalmers Brown, Due

4. Don’t Make Mobile An Afterthought

An increasing number of people use a phone or tablet as their primary way to interact with websites. You can’t slap together a mobile site as an afterthought and expect to be successful: Mobile should be a first-class citizen from the start. Also, resist the temptation to suppress certain content completely on mobile. It may be much easier, but some visitors may never come to your site on a computer. – Jay Oliver, GeekHive

Credit: Shutterstock

Back in early 2016, we had predicted that the year would see the euphoria around mobile app development die down. A year on, we asked 230 app developers for their opinions on where things stand. We came back with some interesting insights.

Mobile investments have become more and more rooted in ROI.

Like the founder of an SDK company told us, there is no reason to believe that your app is going to be successful. While transaction-oriented apps seem to work well for loyal customers, the ‘let’s build an app and they will come’ era, if there ever was one, has ended.

Back in 2015, 30 percent of the businesses built apps with specific revenue goals. In 2016, that number doubled. Sixty percent of organisations that invest in mobile do so with ROI in the equation. Mobile is mainstream, and the expectations are driven by hard numbers. Most enterprises seem to understand how to make mobile work and how to sustain the engagement on internal mobile apps (or have understood that web still works as well as, or better than, mobile in some cases).

Enterprises today understand mobile strategy and mobile design like never before. According to app development agencies that we interviewed, nearly 75 percent of their enterprise customers understand mobile strategy.

Surprisingly, app developers still feel that we are not past the peak of apps. More than 70 percent of the app developers believe that custom app development will still thrive within the enterprise. The inertia of their success with mobile for the last seven years perhaps clouds their opinion on how soon they have to look at the next big wave and ride it.

We predict 2017 to be the year of hyped expectations on apps that are ‘intelligent’. One in five app development agencies are investing in re-skilling themselves to build intelligent apps or bots. While only 3 percent of app developers believe that bots are app killers, 78 percent believe that bots and intelligent apps would be the next logical evolution of personalised computing, which was heralded by mobile. Twelve percent believe that bots and intelligent apps would be a bigger phenomenon than mobile apps.

Nearly 50 percent of app developers have received requests to build bots or intelligent apps within the last six months. But only 15 percent are skilled enough to undertake the development of intelligent applications. By the end of 2017, this could rapidly change. We expect at least 70 percent of the app development community to re-skill themselves to build intelligent apps.

Virtual and mixed reality as a category could see mainstream interest in 2017, even as wearables as a category gets relegated to a fad. Two out of three app developers expect virtual reality to become a mainstream technology in 2017. The app development community has not, however, written off the wearables category just yet – 35 percent of app developers think that wearables will continue as a niche category within the overall mobile device/apps space.

In the app SDK category, we see an increasing trend towards consolidation. Winners in each SDK category have largely been identified, and the category leaders exhibit growth strains as the segment within the app economy with the ability to pay is now a red ocean, with major players holding places firmly.

In terms of app development economics, 30 percent of app developers believe that they could get better price realisation in 2017. Twenty percent believe that there would be a decline in app development pricing. ContractIQ has been observing several app development bids on its platform, and the shift is clearly towards cheaper app developers as the risk and uncertainties with app development have largely been mitigated through acquired knowhow over the years.

Like in the past, this year too, we have published the rates we see on our marketplace across various markets for app development and some of the modern front-end technologies. You could find this rate card and other detailed stats in our report.

Credits : Adtmag

Virtual reality figures prominently in recent 2017 mobile development predictions and trends articles, and the emerging technology is getting a boost with a new VR development kit (VRDK) on tap from Qualcomm Technologies Inc.

Designed to work with the mobile platform based on the newly introduced Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, the kit was announced by the Qualcomm Inc. subsidiary last week, just before the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

The company said the kit will give developers early access to the included Snapdragon 835-powered VR head mounted display (HMD), supported by an upgraded Snapdragon VR SDK.

Those developers will get a head start on the next generation of VR apps, which are becoming increasingly complex and immersive while at the same time being forced to deal with power consumption constraints and high performance requirements, Qualcomm said.

In addition to the HMD — with a two-megapixels-per-eye display, six degrees of freedom (6DoF) motion tracking cameras, two eye-tracking cameras, and 4GB LPDDR4 DRAM and 4GB UFS memory — VR technologies supported by the SDK include:

• DSP sensor fusion
• Foveated rendering
• Fast motion to photon
• Stereoscopic rendering with lens correction
• VR layering
• Advanced application profiling and power management

“With this new VRDK, we’re providing virtual reality application developers with advanced tools and technologies to accelerate a new generation of VR games, 360-degree VR videos and a variety of interactive education, enterprise, healthcare and entertainment applications,” said exec Cristiano Amon. “We see great potential for the exciting new experiences made possible by truly mobile, untethered virtual reality that’s always connected to the Internet, and we’re excited to help mobile VR developers more efficiently deliver compelling and high-quality experiences on upcoming Snapdragon 835 VR-capable products.”

Those Snapdragon 835 VR-capable products are expected to ship in the second half of the year, while developers can get a head start on providing apps with the VRDK, expected to become available on the Qualcomm Developer Network in the second quarter.

Credits : Dzone

New developments in the cloud have significantly impacted the IT landscape. The popularity of cloud infrastructures, containers, and serverless frameworks introduce new challenges in security and deployment, which makes features like firewalled servers and data encryption necessary. The Guide to the Cloud: Native Development & Deployment further explores the state of the industry with exclusive survey data and insights from top executives. Learn more about serverless architecture implementations, asynchronous vs. synchronous models, and leveraging Netflix’s open-source implementation of Hystrix with Cloud-Native architecture.

http://dl.dropbox.com/s/411sgflctjdsm6b/Mob_s.jpg

Much of today’s digital development is taking place on the mobile front. This is especially true of enterprise organizations, which can use these mobile products to improve a range of operations and services. From customer-facing apps and experiences to employee products and data-driven operations solutions, companies are using mobile to become more efficient, more productive and more profitable.

When enterprises sit down to outline their mobile strategies, it’s important that they prioritize API development early in the process. Large organizations are moving beyond standalone mobile apps or products and instead investing in suites of mobile solutions — sprawling ecosystems in which distinct mobile assets are seamlessly integrated to offer unprecedented productivity and experience.

Credits : Prnewswire

NEW YORK, Feb. 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — Apalon, a leading mobile development company, is partnering with Caravan Stylist Studio during fashion week in New York with a unique Coloring Book for Me app activation. The partnership launches Thursday, February 9 at The Gregory Hotel (42 W 35^th Street) and runs through Thursday, February 16. The Coloring Book for Me activation invites bloggers, fashion insiders, and hotel guests to color life-size images, interact with the app via tablets, and take home cards they can color at their leisure. Guests will also be able to schedule styling appointments and view the presentation of Caravan X Tabii, a zero waste capsule collection by Claudine DeSola and Tabitha St. Bernard.

Coloring Book for Me has 25 million users, who are rediscovering the joy of coloring on Android™ and iOS® devices. The app takes the adult coloring book craze off of the page and into users’ hands via their mobile device. With over 25 color palettes and numerous designs to choose from, the app helps users escape the chaos of their day as they color and edit their artwork in a matter of minutes.

“Adult Coloring Book Apps are all the rage as we rediscover the joy and calm of coloring. Whether you’re in your 20s, 30s, 40s or beyond, Apalon’s Coloring Book for Me is a product that will inspire and bring out the creativity in you. Creative expression and color are key inspirations and themes in the fashion community. We are thrilled to partner with Caravan Stylist Studio and The Gregory Hotel to bring our Coloring Book for Me experience to life during fashion week,” noted Lyle Underkoffler, General Manager, Apalon.

This marks the first time Apalon will have a presence during fashion week in New York. The creativity behind Coloring Book for Me is a natural integration for the Caravan Stylist Studio team.

“All of the dresses we created for Caravan x Tabii are a representation of color so this partnership with Coloring Book for Me is the perfect complement to the presentation. The Caravan at The Gregory always seeks to provide a creative hub for guests during the chaos of fashion week – people are running from one show to the next and this lounge offers a relaxing space where people can tap into their creativity by coloring, listening to a custom playlist by DJ Oreon and the Caravan team, and enjoying treats and hot chocolate by So Delicious,” stated Claudine DeSola, Founder, Caravan Stylist Studio.

About Apalon

An IAC Applications company, Apalon is a leading mobile development company with one of the largest and most popular app portfolios in the world, reaching more than 20 million monthly active users. A unique blend of passion and skills are at the core of the company’s DNA, driving the team to produce top-rated, award-winning mobile experiences for millions of people around the world. Apalon’s portfolio includes well-known titles such as Weather Live, Speak & Translate, and Pimp Your Screen. Learn more at www.apalon.com.

About IAC Applications

A division of IAC (Nasdaq: IAC), IAC Applications brings together a unique collection of award-winning technology companies to form one of the world’s largest distributors of utility applications, with its products downloaded more than one million times a day across desktop, browser and mobile devices. For more information about IAC Applications, its businesses and its products, please visit www.iacapps.com.

Coloring Book for Me is a trademark of IAC Search & Media Europe, Ltd. Android is a trademark of Google Inc. These and all other third-party trademarks are the property of their respective owners.  No association or endorsement is implied.

SOURCE IAC Applications; Apalon

Credits : E27

We are well into 2017, and it is high time to take stock of the trends that have come and gone. The market of mobile apps is getting bigger day by day. According to Gartner research, there will be more than 260 billion mobile app downloads in 2016, compared to 180 billion in 2015. The market is supersaturated and really competitive. But there is still a high demand for fine solutions, though. To be up to date, check out an outlook of about five app development trends you should not miss, as created by mobile app development company The App Solutions.

1. More IoT apps

The IoT industry is expanding rapidly and will connect more than 4 billion people, with an opportunity for US$4 trillion revenue by 2020. It will effect a major shift both in hardware and software connected devices.

The core idea behind this trend is not just collecting information, but also provide an information analysis users can rely on while making decisions.

The App Solutions determines two vectors of development for the upcoming year. First is the Rapid Prototype Development that provides the service of prototype creation on a really tight schedule. The second line of activity is the Prototype to Production service wherein we help to complete the project, staff the team with engineers and pick the hardware products.

2. Android before iOS

In 2017 Android has all chances to become a priority platform. Already now Google Play has twice more downloads than iOS App Store. (To be fair we should notice that iOS apps bring more revenue than Android.)

The main reason for this tendency is growing markets of India, China, and Latin America, where smartphones that run on Android prevail. Another significant factor is the evolution of Android ecosystem itself. In any case, the final choice is dictated by the business objectives of each particular project.

3. More UX, less art

The success of a mobile app is defined by the thoughtful user experience, and 2017 won’t change the situation. A diffused background with well-marked and highlighted call-to-action button is a must today. In this way, app owners can help users navigate through the app to the target action. The art should bring a minimum distraction.

Graphic designers and artists will develop UX into an art form. So take a closer look at grid-based interfaces, parallax, split-screens and micro-interactions to gain traction.

4. Security is more important than ever before

Surprisingly, a vast amount of users still don’t take the security issue seriously enough. But it absolutely does not mean that app developers should do the same. With growing development of mobile purchasing and rapidly expanded amount of other users’ private data, security is a number one priority.

Smartphones have plenty of options for user verification like face recognition through inbuilt cameras, voice recognition, fingerprints, SMS codes, and phone calls verification. The whole app security architecture should be carefully checked and improved.

5. Cross-platform apps

Cross-platform apps gain more attention and this becomes another trend that shapes the nearest future. App development customers want to get their apps in the short term and with reasonable price, and frameworks like AngularJS or Cordova are perfect for that.

Another argument for this trend is an increasing number of devices per one person. All apps should look nice, run smoothly, and show excellent performance while connecting to each other.

The takeaway

As a bonus, here are some more trends we all should look out for:

• Space saving features that will help to solve the problem with constant lack of space;
• Interactive push notifications can bring the interaction with app users to a new level of communication;
• Virtual Reality is a bit raw at the moment, but the interest for this area is definitely huge;
• Сhatbots are already here to take over the care of answering users questions and providing relevant content.

To sum up all the above, we should say that the opportunities of a mobile app market are going to reach US$77 billion during the year. So it is worth trying even if your idea is in a highly competitive niche.

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The views expressed here are of the author’s, and e27 may not necessarily subscribe to them. e27 invites members from Asia’s tech industry and startup community to share their honest opinions and expert knowledge with our readers. If you are interested in sharing your point of view, submit your post here.