April 2016 - Redbytes Software

Posted on April 29, 2016 by rbsupadminnextjssite

Over the years, Android has gained ground over iOS devices and is being rapidly picked up as the device of choice by the majority worldwide. It has got some amazing features and also shows a good growth graph.

You might be wondering why you should go for iOS development when the world is circling Android, in terms of the number of devices. Here are some reasons that you may find justifying to choose iPhone app development.

Largest app store for a single device

Even though Android hovers on top with 1.6 million apps in Google Play, leaving Apple behind at 1.5 million apps in total, we should not neglect the fact that Android apps combine apps coming from multiple different markets. In this sense, we can consider Apple has the largest digital repository of apps focusing a unique brand.

Better trust

The one thing that Apple devices guarantee you more than any other environment is its nearly flaw-free UI. The framework of iOS devices is sturdy and stable compared to that of the Android device. The softwares and hardwares blend together and functions like a single body of operation that gives its owners an amazing user experience.

Adding to it, Apple itself has a set of regulatory rules and standards to verify the quality of the apps that are let into their app store. So, users are more satisfied about the brand quality and the trust is so high towards Apple’s apps. This automatically makes them willing to comparatively newer apps.

Best platform to try innovative and new ideas

iOS developers love the fact that they can always reach out to a lot of loyal customers who will pay them more. iOS app users wouldn’t mind to invest more on apps that they find valuable or interesting.

Conversely, in the android market, users are a lot more hesitant to invest above a reasonable amount, even for quality apps. So, regardless of the lesser number of iPhone users worldwide, the total revenue that the iPhone apps generate is more than that of Android apps. This makes iOS an ideal platform to try innovative and unique ideas, which shoots up the development cost.

Apple’s development environment

First of all, we should admit that Microsoft’s Visual Studio is unbeatable for Windows app development. Though Microsoft advocates for Xamarin and is trying to make it an option of universal app development, real experiences show that Xamarin is highly unstable. Further, the licensing costs are high and the IDE demands frequent upgrades.

Well, it turns out then that Xcode is the best suited and regulated platform for iPhone app development. Xcode is amazing, fast, almost crash-free and has so many useful features ideal for iOS development, together with it’s clean UI. It is specifically designed for Objective C programming and Swift.

Android IDE like the popularly endorsed Android Studio has got many drawbacks when compared to the stable Xcode. It is relatively slow and it’s gradle build system is very much complex for beginners. It’s recurrent demand for updates can make understanding the system laborious unless one knows the history behind each component’s design and upgrade. This has eventually made the IDE unpredictable and the projects unstable.

Simplicity

iPhone app development is a lot simpler than doing it for Android. While ease of use and effortless navigation are boon for users, developers have also got many advantages working with iOS. For example, the testing platform is only a single one for iOS – the whole range of iOS devices.

In the case of Android you may have to deal with fragmentation i.e., you will have to consider almost 24,000 different devices and counting to cover the market. What you can do at the most while developing for Android is that, you can simply concentrate on any number of particular models that you may wish to support.

Posted on April 27, 2016 by rbsupadminnextjssite

Narendra Modi’s Government is all set to develop a centralized mobile app, touted as “The mother of all apps”, for the public to avail over 200 multiple services of the Local, State, and Central Governments from a single platform. From applying for passports to filing of income tax, from booking railway tickets to surveying land records, UMANG (Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance) is the “one app to do it all”, the “one app to find them”.

UMANG is developed by the Union Ministry of Communications and Information Technology’s National E-governance Division (NeGD). The project will be available in 13 different languages.

“Everyone is carrying a Smartphone and using the internet on mobile. So we want to provide services wherever the citizens are,” an NeGD official told the media.

The app is promising and will carry Modi’s Digital India dream to further heights. It is expected to make the long lines in front of various Government offices, a memory. The same services are available via SMS and a toll-free number that people without Smartphones can make use of.

“UMANG platform and mobile app, in addition to the services on-boarded through the platform, shall have functionalities to integrate with mobile applications developed by various government departments separately. This is one of the big challenges,” the official added.

The app will start with about 50 services, and will reach a total of 200 services by its 3rd year of deployment. A detailed proposal document hints to the possibility of including several third party services as well.

A short list of UMANG services are as the following:

1. National Scholarship
2. Women’s Safety (Nirbhaya)
3. Healthcare Applications
4. Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS)
5. Passport Seva
6. Income Tax – ITR, PAN
7. CBSE/State Education Boards
8. E-Municipality
9. IRCTC
10. Utility Bills

Posted on April 26, 2016 by rbsupadminnextjssite

Mobile is the largest gaming platform by market share. The gaming industry has become an area of interest for MNCs globally to invest billions. As for indie game developers, now there are lower barriers of entry into the field. With wider audience, an open market, and extensive technology upgrade, the quality, demands, and expectations are growing in the industry everyday.

A major number of games in the mobile space belongs to Android. The audience share for the market in recent years shows a greater growth potential towards east, after setting firm bases among the western populace. As market continues to mature, subsequent scopes are generated with opportunities outspread to explore.

Many studies that delved into this particular digital gaming world have acquired significant insights on the mobile game market. Here are some of those figures that will make you familiar with how the enormous market is stacked up.

Posted on April 25, 2016 by rbsupadminnextjssite

Consoles ruled the gaming world from the beginning, starting with the introduction of Magnavox Odyssey in 1972. Down the line came the most popular Atari, Nintendo, PlayStation, and Xbox. The first ever handheld game happened to be the Mattel Auto Race in 1976. Later, Nokia came up with Snake in 1997, which got hugely popular with Nokia owners.

Entry of handhelds and Smartphones

Handheld consoles, Nintendo DS and PSP hit the market in the year 2004. Later, in 2007, the first iPhone was released by Apple, subsequently opening its iPhone App store as an update to iTunes in 2008. The release of the iPhone into the market made a huge impact on the mobile game development industry. Competitors grew and a large list of successful games like Angry Birds, Temple Run, Candy Crush, Plants & Zombies etc. were made to entertain the mobile game lovers.

The market demand is gradually changing its course in support of more mobile gaming devices. Some of the mobile hardware nearly match the power of gaming consoles that deliver players with quality gaming experience on mobile. A lot of big gaming studios and indies are up to mobile game development these days. Furthermore, what users love the most about mobile devices are its cheap price and easy availability as compared to gaming devices such as Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo. Additionally, factors such as portability and connectivity are also in favour of mobile games.

Answering an important question

There is no doubt that mobile games will hold its popularity and fame in the near future as well. The question now turns out to be, will gaming consoles survive this fierce battle with mobile gaming? There has been a lot of discussion going on around about whether mobile games will replace console gaming or not.

Recently, Nintendo launched Militomo, it’s mobile game app and Sony has come up with ForwardWorks, it’s very own gaming studio. Now we can genuinely suspect whether the big bosses in the console gaming industry fear that the mobile market will push them out!

Has mobile gaming actually surpassed consoles?

While it is true that mobile gaming has grown immensely over the past years and have affected the sales of consoles like Vita and 3DS, one could not hold the view that it had surpassed console gaming all together. The thing that many don’t understand is that, though mobile gaming and console gaming may overlap in several areas, both of them are focusing on two entirely different markets, at least for now.

For e.g., there are many new arrivals in the field of mobile gaming, that can’t be mimicked by a console game such as location based games and gyroscope-aided games. Conversely; gesture detection, motion sensing etc. are still very alien to smartphone gamers. After all, hardcore gamers would always like to play their games on consoles, as the raw power and display size of mobile devices wouldn’t beat consoles in anyway. But casual gamers need their devices to play games on their commutes and short breaks.

The main things that give console games an upper hand over mobile games in the present environment are majorly battery life, storage availability, and the bigger screens. But with VR glasses, cloud storage and other improved alternatives coming into the scene, mobile games are not going to be held back.

Recommended read: 5 Reasons Why Mobile Game Development Companies Fail to Win the Global Market

Current trend

Very recently, the trend has been shifted to multi platform games. This could mean that consoles and mobiles may collaborate with newer technologies like wearables such as Apple watch, Android Wear, and Google Glass and will continue to change how we play games. Imagine yourself starting to play a game such as FIFA 15 on your Smartphone, and continuing to play it on your console and moving on to play it from your PC – that is what cross platform gaming is all about.

What would be the future of consoles?

The future of console games cannot be exactly predicted for now. Strictly speaking, whether the console games will evolve or die is something that time needs to show us. But if the console games do die, that will be because of some revolutionary discovery in the field of mobile game development. Otherwise, the possibilities and capabilities of both console and mobile are very immense. One may overpower the other, or they may augment each other.

Conclusion

If we consider what happened in history, the chances are high that new genres of games and introduction of new technologies may replace existing ecosystems. Or the console games may even undergo extensive facelifts through some serious R&D steps and incorporate new ways to satisfy it’s cutomer preferences. Taking into account the current trends, we can conclude that mobile games wouldn’t replace console games, but each of them will explore two different niches.

Posted on April 22, 2016 by rbsupadminnextjssite

The rate at which information gets shared in the present day is outrageous. You don’t lazily sip a cup of tea and go through the newspaper every morning. Newspaper news is stale to you as you’ve already read it from your smartphone.

Read also: 10 Common Features of Good Learning Apps for Kids

As a publisher, your present might be dull, and the future, even more so. But you have a way out – convert books to mobile apps. Why should you do it? Here are 12 reasons for you:-

Offer Fresh Content to the Digital Generation: – You have to be where your customer is. And currently the biggest consumers of digital content is the digital generation. A number of them wouldn’t have read books. And they do have a voracious appetite for new content.

So, your traditional books would be new content to them, and chances are they would love it. Most of them are more comfortable with digital content than traditional books.

No Printing Cost – Unlike doing a new edition, creating a mobile app does not involve the cost of printing. One of the major investment you require for traditional books is printing cost. So, creating an app would cost you a lot lesser.

Storage Space Required – With an app, you need next to no physical storage space. So, that godown you used to have earlier to store books are not required anymore.

No Transportation cost – If you do not have anything to print and store, you don’t have anything to transport as well. So, no transportation cost – another reason for you to convert books to apps.

Easily Portable – The process of setting up your own account in the popular app stores such as Google Play and Apple App Store are no big deal. Probably your mobile app developer himself would get it done for you. There is no need to carry it around by any means of transportation.

Recommended read: 5 Smart Tips for Parents to Buy Learning Apps for Kids

Easy to Market and Distribute – Its very simple to distribute as well. With the right App Store Optimization (Why Use App Store Optimization Services?) and digital marketing techniques, you can reach out to a massive number of audience. Distributing is simple as sharing the link to the app.

Customizable – Unlike physical books, e-books in apps can be easily customized and updated. So, adding a few design changes or correcting a few pages or typos wouldn’t be a big deal. You can change the fonts, colors, etc and just upload the update

Environmental Benefits – Obviously, paper is not required for publishing your content as mobile apps. Leading to lesser trees being cut down, which is a huge positive for the environment.

User Benefits of Converting Books To Mobile Apps

Can Be Interactive – Traditional books are not much interactive. They are just plain, fixed text. So, it is that much more difficult to keep modern readers engaged. But in the case of apps, you can show a variety of content, such as videos, social media integration, ability to search, annotate, etc.

Easily Accessible Alternate Resources – As mentioned above, apps can be interactive, which offers you an opportunity to cross link between your resources, allowing them more exposure.

You can link to other e-books, videos or even a product you want to sell. This offers a good experience to the readers as well. Because, unlike with a traditional book, they don’t have to search for a book mentioned in the bibliography among stacks of library books.

Easy access and simple to use – Apps are very easy to install. They are just a click away, in fact. People don’t have to neither go to book store nor wait for it to arrive after ordering.

Search Feature – The modern generation is so accustomed to Google, that they expect the search feature in everything. And traditional books cannot beat the ability of e-books or apps to search. It makes finding particular information very simple.

Posted on April 21, 2016 by rbsupadminnextjssite

There are so many apps to choose from in the educational app category for children on all major app stores. Still, possibility is high that all your efforts may turn out unrewarding in the end. So, it is imperative that you should have a better knowledge on what makes the difference between a truly educational app and something that is just an eye candy. Here, we discuss about the features that every best learning apps for kids share in common.

Meet the State Standards: The learning apps for kids should focus on the state’s curriculum standards. For this, advice from teachers should be sought while developing the app.
Simple UX and Easy Navigation: The user interface should be simple. It should be designed and structured so as to make navigation easy for children.
Use Illustrations, Speech and Music: Children learn better if they are provided with enough examples and illustrations. For e.g., when teaching them simple operations like addition and couting, you can provide them with illustrations of the same. Apps can include music to keep them entertained, but a mute button should be provided in case they are needed. Additionally, speech should be offered in apps that target children who haven’t learned to read yet.
Short Activities at a Time: Learning activities should not be too time consuming, since kid’s tend to lose their concentration when a certain activity takes too much time and is confusing. There shouldn’t be elaborate learning procedures. All activities should be well-explained, short, simple, and directly related with the concept to be learned.
Set Goals that Aid Learning Naturally: Apps should promote activities that aid learning naturally. Your learning goal shouldn’t be too apparent to the children. This will make the activity seem monotonous and repetitive. Kids tend to like apps providing entertaining activities more than apps calling them to do memorizing activities. Apps should promote acquirement of qualities such as critical thinking, problem solving, creativity etc.
Complexity should be Fit for the Learner’s Age and Cognitive Development: The concept and activities of learning apps for kids should be apt for the cognitive ability of the target audience. If an app is designed for children of an age range, then there should be options that will allow adults to select the right level for their children. More advanced levels can be chosen as the child progress with their learning. Also, if the chosen level is too easy for a child, then he or she will lose interest in the activity very soon. There should be something exciting and challenging for them to do in every activity.
Apps should Promote Social Involvement: The learning process is enhanced, when there is the right amount of social involvement. Parents, teachers, and peer groups should interact with the children in their activities to give them support and competition.
Locked Menus and Settings: Kid’s apps should be devoid of any unwanted distractions that take the focus away from the set goals. There shouldn’t be any popups, advertisements, links, social media, or similar distractions coming in between an activity. Everything should be locked and access should be given only for grown-ups.
Linear Advancement: The advancement of any activity should be made in a linear fashion to ensure flow. There shouldn’t be too many choices given. This will result in the kid’s loosing attention from the central activity.
Track Progress: There should be a well defined grading mechanism in place to check the kid’s learning progress. Feedback should not be restricted to positive ones alone. It is also not advisable to be too harsh on them or discouraging, when they are wrong. Negative feedbacks should be so designed that they will motivate the kids to keep on trying.

Also Check : Latest Updated Educational Apps Directory List

Posted on April 19, 2016 by rbsupadminnextjssite

Mobile game development has turned out to be a lucrative revenue source for many years now. A great amount of planning and a stroke of luck could bring success to your doorsteps. Casual game is something that many young developers and small scale mobile game development companies find profitable to invest. Find out what gets you to success in casual mobile game development from this article.

What is a casual game?

Casual games are those games, which can be played without advanced gaming knowledge, skills or commitment towards gaming. It has got a wide audience range including women, children, and even elders, since the effort that needs to be put into learning to play them is much smaller than hardcore games. One of the most successful casual games recently had been the most celebrated, Angry Birds.

Read also: First Steps to Successful Mobile App Development – Define a Purpose and Validate Your Idea

What makes a casual game different from other hardcore games?

Talking about casual games, the first thing that draws attention is its simple rules and mechanics. Literally, anybody can play them. There is also the fact that on an average, only a lesser amount of time is being spent playing them. Casual games require inferior skill sets to master the game, as compared to hardcore games which can be mastered only by elite gamers.

Casual games can be played in short bursts and in small intervals. In the producer’s point of view, they typically involve lower production and distribution costs.

Here are some tips for successful casual mobile game development.

1. Offer simple plot: Casual games are known for its simplicity. Twisted plots will tamper with the overall unsophisticated nature of casual games. Complicated story lines are more characteristic of hardcore games.

2. Offer simple game play: The controls incorporated in casual games should also be simple. Use one touch/ single keystroke controls to execute actions such as throw, jump, shoot etc. Usually simple to understand, interesting, and easy to play games can attract a majority of targeted audience.

3. Applaud all victories: Casual games should not fail to applaud even the small victories. Since the plot and game play of casual games are simple, there will not be much chance to honour greater achievements. Players usually get bored of a game, if there is not enough encouragement or successive accomplishment that will keep them interested. The developers should carefully plan the plot to include all possible challenges that can give recognition for triumph.

4. Constant entertainment: Games should always showcase the fun element. Including the right amount of music, instructions, praise, shouts, etc. at the right place is very important to every game’s success.

5. Include a lot of levels: An easy way to make a simple game challenging is by increasing the number of levels included. Having a lot of levels to conquer and victories to celebrate, can build the player’s interest in the game.

6. Don’t forget to consider the hardcore gamers too: Developing casual games shouldn’t give you the idea that you should totally neglect the hardcore gamers. Casual games, by definition itself accounts to those games that are pleasing to all audience groups, irrespective of their talent level and personal interest. Therefore casual games should include greater challenges, focusing serious players.

You may also like: Mobile Game Market – Facts

7. The game physics should be fun: Casual games should incorporate attractive and fun physics into the game. Since these games lack any serious or sometimes even meaningful plot, they shouldn’t abandon promising features that will raise the player’s interest level.

8. Cuteness attract: Just like cute bunnies please the most of us, cute game characters also have the power to build an emotional attachment with the players. People can easily sympathize with their motives and will wish if they were actually real.

9. Patience, the right strategy: Like in every other field, patience is something that you might need to practice a lot in order to savour victory. All successful ventures have a history to tell of failures and waiting calmly and patiently, before getting there.

These 9 tips can be golden advices while you travel your path to success in casual mobile game development.

Posted on April 18, 2016 by rbsupadminnextjssite

Sony takes one more step in the gaming world with its new mobile game development studio, ForwardWorks. The new division was launched on April 1st, and is set in Tokyo, Japan. It will target the Asian markets initially.

Sony says that “ForwardWorks” will leverage the intellectual property of the numerous PlayStation® dedicated software titles and its gaming characters as well as the knowledge and know-how of gaming development expertise which was acquired over the years with PlayStation® business to provide gaming application optimized for smart devices including smartphones* to users in Japan and Asia.”

Similar efforts were taken by the company, back in 2011, when it came up with cross-compatible games developed under the PlayStation Mobile initiative. But these games were only meant to be played on the Playstation Suite and selected Android devices. Unfortunately, the company had to halt the venture last year, due to failure in appeasing its audience.

Sony appears to be following the footsteps of its rival Nintendo. Nintendo’s mobile-game app Militomo had been launched last month, reaching millions of downloads in just three days.

Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. has also re-branded itself by merging its PlayStation business from around the globe, under the banner Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc.

“SIE will vigorously maximize the corporate value and create new business opportunities through the establishment of ForwardWorks”, the company announced.

Posted on April 15, 2016 by rbsupadminnextjssite

” What’s the purpose of your app? ” This should be the first and foremost question that should creep into your mind when you think mobile app development. There should be a solidly defined purpose for every app created. Candy Crush is for entertainment, Skype is for communication, and eBay is for shopping online. Developing an app without a purpose would only be a waste of money and time.

Okay, now that you’ve got a purpose for app creation, you can move on to the next step – Finalizing the app idea.

You may also: Why Complex Designs May Hurt Mobile App Development

There is every reason for you to be excited once you get hold of an apparently plausible list of app ideas. You will be eager to continue with the initial steps of mobile app development by choosing the most promising one among them. But, before jumping heads first into the development process, it is worth validating the concepts you have in hand, in order to know whether they could stand a chance in the competitive market and gain enough ROI.

The mobile app development process is quite expensive. Validation helps to save your money, time, and effort. There is a trend of copying the already successful apps in the market. But you should remember that, something that works for others may not work for you every time.

Proper planning and research is important in app development like in every other business. You should take effort to generate maximum feedback from the public. But that’s not an easy job. How could you generate any feedback for an unfinished app that is still in its conception phase? This topic gives you information about the different ways that you can use to validate your app.

Research Your Market Well

It is very important that you thoroughly check if your app can satisfy an existing demand in the market or create a new one. Google has got its own tools to determine the number of searches made all over the world. Keyword tool, Google trends, etc. will help you to analyze where the public demand heads. It also gives a more focused, niche based search option that allows you to obtain the preferences of people concentrated over a particular geographical area.

Recommended read: How do Mobile Applications Benefit the Education Sector?

The best app idea to choose could be the one that returns a total number of searches and that could come inside of a low competition area. The total searches made should be somewhat consistent round the year.

Study App Stats from App Charts

Use websites such as App Annie that track app market statistics to get an idea about the top apps and download stats of particular genre of apps. Also, do not forget to browse in popular app stores and get a record of the popular apps in them. This will help you to know about the possible competitors and will give you a glance into the existing market gap for different products.

Build Your Own Landing Page

Right when you have finally decided to stick on with an idea, you could start creating a landing page for your app. The landing pages should be simple with easy to grasp information and digestible designs. It should give the viewers a general idea about what your app exactly is, complete with graphics and the main functions.

This is a sure way of generating a much realistic estimation on the possibility of your app’s success. As a general rule, the number of clicks that you get will be directly proportional to the conversion rates. If whatever you get is a bit unsatisfactory, you should consider revising the design, text, color and other features of your app.

Apart from these major three, there are still other ways that could give you a chance to know if your app will hold up well. These includes social media campaigns through twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc., creating promotional videos, blogging and so on.

Posted on April 6, 2016 by rbsupadminnextjssite

Though Apple’s app store did not pioneer the app distribution services, nobody would disagree with the fact that Apple had brought about a revolution in creating and distributing mobile applications. Now, Android retains a mountainous global share in the mobile app market. Yet the demand for iOS apps is still on the rise.

Mobile app development companies are mushrooming everywhere, as the requirement for app development services are getting larger. It doesn’t require you to put much effort to find out an iOS app developer these days. But if what you wish for is to travel abreast of those winning apps, you need to have some basic knowledge of iOS app development basics before hiring a developer, which directly influence the factors that foster success.

The Application Development Framework

Cocoa is the object oriented foundation framework used for developing applications to run on the iOS. It uses the root class NSObject, which defines all the basic object behavior and implements classes representing the primitive types (strings, numbers), collections (arrays, dictionaries) etc.

Internalization, file management, accessing system entities such as ports etc. are other functions that can be carried out. So, it is absolutely necessary for an iOS app developer to possess all the necessary knowledge about the iOS development framework.

The Importance of an Appealing Application Design

On the app store, the first thing that people will notice about your app is its UX. If you can’t impress consumers with an appealing and user-friendly UX, there will be a negligible chance for your app to surpass the oppositions in the market.

Read also: Is iPhone App Development Profitable?

To survive the fierce competition, a great user experience is unavoidable. And for a good user experience, creative application design is very crucial. Many inexperienced app developers don’t give much importance to creativity in app design. So, expert designers should be hired for this purpose.

Bringing Innovative Solutions to Problems

The demand for innovative, out of the box solutions are high in the iOS app development market. More and more diverse apps presenting newer ideas flood the app store every day.

But, from the developer’s point of view, these creative designs are source of misconceptions and inexactness. Extra effort and time should be put, in order to understand and code the new concepts. Even minor errors can impose a grave threat to the overall budget.

Compatibility Check

From the original iPhone to the new iPhone SE, iPad to iPad Pro and even the iTouch; the number of Apple devices that use iOS apps are many. The task to ensure compatibility with these multiple devices is a Herculean one. As a result, neglected and unobserved errors lead to the most common issues. So, it is important to ensure proper testing is carried out to rectify the encountered mistakes.

Compliance to Apple’s Terms and Conditions

It is important for an iOS app development company to have a clear idea about Apple’s App Store Review Guidelines and the Human Interface Guidelines for app approval. By ensuring that your apps abide by these rules and regulations before submitting to the iTunes App store, it will be possible to prevent additional costs and delay in launch that will be applicable if it gets rejected.

Swift

As a developer language, Apple’s Swift is being widely adopted as the primary programming language or is used in combination with objective-C. The interoperability with Objective-C has allowed incorporating Swift’s features into existing projects, accounting for greater acceptance and adoption levels within the small time period after its release. It is predicted that Swift will be the future of iOS development.

Rise in the Popularity of IoT Projects

The IoT technology helps to connect a number of devices with the internet. That means connecting and controlling cars, wearables, TV, various home appliances and even robots from the web.

Gartner forecasts that over 6.4 billion IoT devices will be in use worldwide in 2016, and it will reach 20.8 billion by 2020. Many iOS app development companies are already targeting the IoT market, and are working on side projects to reap the benefits that will be created as the demand for IoT devices and services will get high.