Estimating the Cost of New Mobile Application Development

Let us start with a plain fact: If you have a business, you need to build an app. A business mobile app can act as your company’s online representative and enables you to serve your customers in a better way. Ultimately, it results in having a loyal customer base with increased sales figures.

We can classify customized mobile apps in three broad categories depending on the number of features and complexity of the app: Basic, Moderate, and Complex. Talking about the cost of mobile app, the basic app’s price starts from as low as $5000 and a highly complex app can cost you over $45000.

Read on to understand the key factors that determine a mobile app development cost.

Mobile application development cost depends upon various factors including feature integration, functionality and the platform on which it is being launched. Most mobile app development companies offer a package based on the hours spent in development. Some companies give a cost estimate based upon features and development platform.

Major elements that decide the total app development cost include:

• Project time
• Development team
• Cost of app elements
• Post-release expenses

The market for mobile application development is vast and evolving. Whether to hire a team of developers or outsource your app project- it’s your call. However, the points mentioned above will help you make a decision in line with your business requirements.

Original Source: Estimating the Cost of New Mobile Application Development

Tips for awesome push notifications

While developing a mobile application it is important to keep in mind that your push notifications don't get annoying your users. You need to play it cool else it can cause more harm than good. Below are few key tips to keep in mind while including push notifications in your app:

• Dont overdo it

You must figure out from a user’s perspective how much is too much. Yours is not going to be the sole app in the user’s phone. Users have hundreds of other apps in their mobile. So keeping that in mind, make sure you don't overdo sending push notifications else users might uninstall the app or completely disable notifications for your app. It would be great if you give users the options to edit the notifications they would like to receive from your app like promotional, new updates, new arrivals etc. They can disable the ones they are not interested in.

• Understand your audience category

Each application has a different category of audience and understand how your notification will prove useful to them. For e.g if it is a deals app then it makes sense to send notifications when you have new discounts or when their deal has been purchased successfully. If it is an appointment booking app, you can send notifications before an hour of their appointment as a reminder.

• Try to personalise

User push notification as a great marketing tool. When you personalise your notifications, users will find it more friendly and not a typical professional message. For eg. wish users on their birthdays with a personalised text like “Happy Birthday Daniel. Have a great day ahead! “

• Send at the right time

Timing is very important. You can't be sending push notifications in the midnight to annoy your users with that sound no matter how exciting your notification is. Know the time zone of the user and set push notifications accordingly.

I hope this article was helpful and help you to decide when to keep push notifications so that you retain your users. Do you have questions about creating strategies for your app and its push notifications? Visit our website to hire us for mobile application development company or write to us on info@solutionanalysts.com.

Building Mobile Apps With Ionic and AngularJS

Are you a web developer and building your mobile app for the first time? If you think those skills will be of no help while creating a mobile app then thats a myth. You can create a mobile app with your web skills, all thanks to cordova. It will let you use your HTML5 and JS basics to create an app that will work for all platforms.

What is Angular?

Angular is a server side framework driven by google. It is a path breaking technology that offers two way data binding and dependency injection. Data binding with angular is is powerful. When the UI updates, Angular manages to update it model to match the UI. Angular makes communication with  the servers effective. Developers love this framework because it is powerful and hence it is faster to build apps using AngularJS as compared to other javascripts.  

With Angular you can reuse the same logic on multiple platforms and at the same time customise as per requirement for each platform. The functionality of the app remains seperate with the UI of the app. 

What is Ionic?

Ionic is a framework that is built on top of Angular framework. Ionic is a UI library with fantastic inbuilt options available which helps the developers to build an attractive frontend for the users. If you are a web developer, its easy for you to understand if I say ionic for mobile is what bootstrap framework for web is.

Apart from that, ionic also makes push notification and analytics integration with the app easy. 

Why is the combination deadly?

Angular is effective solution when it comes to developing logic and framework while ionic focusses on making your app look beautiful following the web standards. Using them together means using angular for the logic part and iconic for HTML5 and JS part.  The combination is a winner because with Angular you can develop an applications complex as you want to and still have the best of UI with the help of ionic. 

Are you looking for a iOS Mobile App Development Company to build your application? Contact Solution Analysts for complete Mobile App Development Solutions.

5 Mobile App Development Trends in 2017

There has been a booming rise in the use of mobile apps since past 5 years with almost all big players having their exclusive apps to reach out to their users. With lot of new trends that dominated 2016, here we present few trends that will slay in 2017:

• IoT app integrations to dominate

Apps catering to IoT will be a huge dominance in the coming year. Mobile devices are are getting advanced with integration of sensors for various operations and this is already attracting masses. We are likely to see more applications that support IoT in terms of lot of electronic devices and gadgets becoming operational through mobile apps. Data gathering and sharing for this will also be handled effectively.

• Security and space to be a top priority

People do not do much to ensure that their smartphones are secure which is not good. This is a challenge for applications. In 2017, applications will work towards ensuring that they have inbuilt security to a certain extent possibly at API level. Also very soon, iOS coding will be changed to apple’s own programming language which will is likely to introduce new features and take are of security too. For android, google is about to make a large number of changes in its OS to enhance security. Space is another issue for the users. There are some apps that are nice but fail to retain the expected users because they consume a lot of space. So techniques that can save space are going to be in demand.

• Cross platform to be in demand

The use of cross platform apps to create hybrid applications is exponentially increasing, one due to the cost saving factor and other for not losing a big chunk of customers by restricting to single platform. There are some great hybrid tools available for developer like ionic, phone gap, angular js etc which help to create hybrid apps which work for all platforms. It saves a lot of time because the developers only have to write the code once.

• Push notifications and android/apple watches

Push notifications have become quite common with most of the apps and users are liking it. Interactive push notifications will continue to be in trend. Most of the apps will try to provide facilities to users where they can respond to the notification without opening the entire app. This will save battery in the phones. Another rage is the famous android/apple watch. Smartphone watches give users the ease of operation without touching the phone to view all notifications. It is a great invention and will gain more popularity in the coming year. 

• Messengers/social networking apps to get upgraded

Entire 2016 we have seen the increasing usage of social media apps and messenger apps, especially whatsapp. In 2017 we believe these apps will keep on evolving and introducing new features to attract more users. Social media will be taken more seriously for branding and marketing.

We hope 2017 serves to be path breaking in the market of Mobile App Development Services and users get to experience some fantastic feature rich applications with great UI. If you have an app idea in mind and want a dynamic, professional team of develop for you, contact us at info@solutionanalysts.com

ReactJS vs AngularJS – Which one to pick?

ReactJS and AngularJS are both extremely popular frameworks used by any mobile app development company. Both are great in their own ways and have their advantages and disadvantages depending on what developers are looking for. Lets analyse features of both major cutting edge players and you can decide which one to pick.

AngularJS

Angular is pretty much the perfect solution for handling data binding. Data binding in Angular apps involves the automatic synchronization of data between the model (or customer input source) and the “view”. When the model changes, the view mirrors the change, and vice versa. By cutting out multiple steps, Angular can be a very appealing option. 

ReactJS

ReactJS is an exceptional framework for managing the DOM (Document Object Model), especially when dealing with vast amounts of data. React mainly works by creating a virtual DOM in JavaScript that behaves as an intermediate representation of the DOM. This representation makes it easy to decide which elements to change in the DOM and what the results may be.

Comparison:

Age:

React has just started while Angular has been there since long. So support for Angular is much better. While Angular's coding is more complex, React is easier to use so you need less help from the support communities.

Speed & features:

Angular JS is more powerful but is little less in speed than React. When there is a huge database to pull data from, users might experience a slight delay. React is faster than Angular JS so works fine while rendering large data. 

It uses full MVC architecture so it is great for experienced coders to use. It uses only the view component so it less features rich than Angular JS. Beginners should use React.

Deployment:

Angular JS functions from HTML perspective and provides limited scope of tools for packaging and deploying the code.  While React functions from Javascript perspective and provide a library like RequireJS to load the code.

Debugging:

With Angular JS its easy to write the code but difficult to debug.  With React, its much easier to debug. You can get React Developers Tools extension for chrome and get started.

Who wins:

Well the answer is both! Lets use them with each other and not against. React’s pure JavaScript environment gives developers more flexibility and ease of learning. When Angular restricts something, you can expect React to provide full freedom.Equally powerful, use a combination of both in your next big project.  If you are looking for top notch mobile app development solutions, contact us at Solution Analysts.

Impact of mobile apps in manufacturing industries

It has taken a while for this to happen but mobile apps now play a significant role at core level of industries too, which is manufacturing. Mobile apps take the industry forward by gathering data at all levels and increase productivity.

• Managing maintenance

Machines need to to be regularly maintained to ensure that they run smoothly and production is not hampered at any cost. There are mobile apps with censors that help to capture performance and generate real time data. The quality team receives alerts when a machine needs attention.

• Build sales quotes faster

With single mobile app, integration of price model with current inventory system help sales person to create a quote faster as the calculation of efforts becomes easier with no communication with manager of each department.

• Production tracking

With the help of mobile apps, it is possible to have tracking of each and every step of production. An industry owner in USA found out by production tracking that his order used to travel 6 miles in the factory itself to complete the order. He figured out a better way and saved some miles and hence reduced the production time and labour. Apart from locations, mobile apps can also help in tracking real time material flow and amount of parts in hand.

• Fleet management

With access of complete database in the mobile app, the calculation of fleet and management can be done in the most efficient manner without any extra communication.

• Supply chain

The pace with which market has become technology driven, how cannot it not affect supply chain? The gap between suppliers and manufacturers can be reduced and transparency can be increased with the help of mobile apps where suppliers are kept updated. This gives and edge over the industries that still follow traditional

methods for managing the supply chain. Also mobile apps can help big time in increasing sales capabilities.

When mobile apps aid in increasing the productivity at industrial level, end customers will be benefitted with greater and faster outputs. If you need professional help in mobile app development company contact us at info@solutionanalysts.com and we will be happy to help.

Mobile apps and health care revolution

The term revolution has a big meaning when it comes to mobile apps that are being developed for healthcare. Most of the times, people do not want to change their doctors even after their location is changed or when they are travelling for a long time. In such cases, a well planned mobile application development comes into picture.

Thanks to various mobile apps that can track the right data, healthcare is no more restricted to patients waiting to get an appointment and sit face-to-face with the doctor unless it is critical. In some apps, you can also chose your doctor and arrange an appointment using the app itself if you need to see him face-to-face.

The greatest evolution is a patient leaving the hospital and having all the case details on the hospital’s mobile app itself. Right from the bifurcated hospital bills to daily reports and prescription, all with one touch of your mobile screen can be a huge convenience because you know its all going to be in your mobile for having a look later. There is no need of a file to take care of and refer to if anything needs to be checked.

Fitbit is one of the most widely used mobile application. Fitbit, a fitness band, in itself is a revolution. You can wear it for the entire day and the basic stats of your all-day activity, calories, workouts etc can be tracked in its mobile app.

There are many yoga apps launched by few healthcare providers that provide step-by-step guidance to the users along with benefits of each of the asanas. It is quite useful to the users to have everything in one app.

Many gyms have also come up with their mobile apps where users can check the daily sessions, trainer schedules, make payment to buy additional services, renew their gym membership without physically going to the gym.

There are mobile apps available to increase patient engagement with the doctors so that they can track their daily routine, without the having the patient physically at the clinic. This has worked most efficiently with dieticians who can design entire weight loss program with the data collected from app and send to the customer.

If you are a healthcare provider and looking for better ways for an efficient patient engagement, contact us at info@solutionanalysts.com. Our dynamic mobile application development company  team will be happy to help you with your app.

Impact of mobile apps on E-Commerce

The impact of mobile devices and technology on both business and consumers has been major in past few years, especially on E-Commerce and will be even more dominant in the coming years. It is predicted that usage of mobile data will increase by 80% in the coming 5 years. Below are few most noticeable ways that show how mobile applications have changed the face of E-Commerce:

1. Mobile Commerce and Shopping

Due to the increase in demand, it is very important these days for E-Commerce portals to have their mobile app developed because about 75% of traffic is been coming from there. Due to ease of use, users prefer shopping on mobile app instead of reaching to the laptop or even opening the site in mobile browser.

2. Purchasing traits

As per the statistics, most of the mobile app purchases happen within fraction of seconds. Users do not take time to make decisions and there is ease of payment too with the apps. 

There is no doubt that mobile apps keep the customers engaged for a longer time if they are well developed and have a good UI. 

3. Increase in reliability

When an E-Commerce app is secure, loads fast, provides a perfect UI experience with no crashing, users will find the brand reliable. Reliability is a factor that has the most dramatic impact on the business of mobile app. The brands that have gained this perform the best.

4. Brand loyalty

If you have you E-Commerce app that is feature rich and isn't too heavy, it wont take longer to be customer’s favourite. Some people have limited space in their phones so once they generate a loyalty towards your brand they wont be interested in installing 50 other E-Commerce apps and will return to your app time and again. 

5. Trust

Trust has always been important when there is anything that involves payment. With the increase in mobile apps and the positive reviews that they have garnered all over for security and privacy, people are no more vigilant to make payment with their cards for shopping online. 

6. Have a plan?

Do you think it is high time for you to adapt to mobile application and get one developed soon? We are here to help you. We at Solution Analysts have a dynamic team to manage Mobile App Development Services for you. 

3 Core Competencies to Seek in Mobile App Development Services

Outsourcing is always a tough decision, especially if you are new to business technology. There are innumerable options, each with its own unique offering and many offering similar capabilities yet vastly different. Many companies approach a software outsourcing company with detailed plans of what they want, but there is an equal number who have an idea and are lost in the execution phase. We take a look at 4 core competencies to seek in mobile app development services.

• Technical know-how

Mobile application development is still evolving as it is witnessing introduction of new technologies every year. Already smart watches have become an old concept and we are moving towards massive use of Internet of Thing (IoT) technologies in mobile devices. Internet has perpetuated over 50% of the global landscape and capitalising on its reach, mobile applications have to be handy. It is essential that the mobile app development company has the infrastructure, manpower and business understanding to know what would be the right technology to deploy for the application. 

• Marketing and Business

With over a billion applications on the leading mobile platforms, that is, Android and iOS, marketing the application correctly is extremely important to make it visible. Google has already announced plans to deploy SEO-friendly keywords in Google Play Store and Apple is planning to monetize the situation by selling prime spots on the App Store. App development companies must be able to guide the business in how many features to deploy the application with and when to release updates to keep the app relevant. If you partner with the app development company on the project on a profit sharing basis, they will support the application through the marketing and update phase too.

• Communicating with them

It is important that the app developers have relevant knowledge of the business aspect of a mobile application to ensure that the app development goals are the same. Also, if ideas are communicated and understood, there is clarity in execution and redevelopment and modification costs are reduced. 

When you set out in search of mobile app development services, the primary thing to look out for will be whether they understand your needs and are able to give clarity to your vision. Outsourcing always makes sense primarily because it takes care of the heavy technological investment in a field where what is new today will be obsolete in less than an year.

4 Benefits Ionic Framework for Cross-Platform Mobile Application Development

Ionic is an open source, front-end SDK used for designing hybrid mobile applications with AngularJS, PhoneGap and SASS. It has given developers the breadth that was previously missing in cross-platform application development technologies to create highly functional and complex user interfaces. The apps built using this technology can be distributed to the various app stores with native look and feel. Ionic provides similar functions as iOS UIKit and Android UI, and being based on HTML 5 framework, it uses wrappers such as PhoneGap or Cordova to run as a native app.  We discuss 4 benefits Ionic framework for cross-platform mobile application development.

• Open Source Framework

The primary benefits of open source frameworks are that they are low cost and have a strong developers’ community support. In case of Ionic, it goes a step further and offers codes of mobile-optimized HTML, CSS and JS components. Thus, it aides rapid development since there is no need to rewrite codes. Its integration with AngularJS helps code structure and makes applications manageable on various platforms.

• Default UI

Ionic has many default CSS and JS components that address the elementary aspects of mobile application development. It has multiple options in Form Inputs, Sliding Menu, Lists, Buttons, Navigation, Popups, Tabs and much more. These elements are simple but do not compromise on elegance and can be customized further to render the effects of the developer’s choice. The uniformity does not compromise on the user experience on independent platforms.

• AngularJS foundation

As it is built on the AngularJS framework, Ionic extends its many features to deliver creative mobile applications. There are many in-built features of AngularJS that help in creating exceptional user experience, and Ionic framework being fully compatible with AngularJS, makes use of all these features. In many aspects, Ionic broadens AngularJS and makes it easy to use Angular for Mobile App Development Services.

• Platform Independent

Ionic automatically recognizes the in-built CSS equivalent of the platform to deliver the native experience. It provides codes of mobile-optimized JS, CSS and HTML components so developers do not have to rewrite codes for individual platforms repeatedly. Also, the AngularJS integration renders a robust structure that does not compromise code quality and makes it easy to manage. 

Cross-platform mobile application development is highly feasible for enterprises and in circumstances where an application needs to be released on multiple platforms simultaneously, with critical time constraints. Ionic gives developers the space to extend their creativity and not compromise on user experience despite being a low cost solution.