June 2016 - Redbytes Software

Posted on June 30, 2016 by rbsupadminnextjssite

Earlier this month, during a routine app monitoring, Sensor Tower, a mobile analytics firm noticed that a huge number of apps were missing from the App Store in Thailand.

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The company first estimated the number to be around 19,000. But it was later found that the number of missing apps were a much higher number, titaling to around 425,290.

Responding to the news, Apple confirmed that a number of apps were accidentally removed from the App Store when they were repricing the apps in local currency. They also revealed that the bug was fixed within 48 hours. But Sensor Tower Data Scientists claimed that they were unavailable for around 6 days.

Posted on June 30, 2016 by rbsupadminnextjssite

Who said iOS app development is only done for trivial ideas like photo editing or managing your daily mails? There are iOS app development companies who have thought different.

One such thought led to the development of apps that could actually help in saving one’s life when there is a threat or danger. Here are some cool apps that you could use for your safety or to get inspiration for iOS app development.

1. Itriage app

Itriage is a healthcare app that can provide you with medical answers to your health related queries, care options, advices etc. The main features of this app includes:

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Description, symptoms, causes, clinical tests, and treatment available for diseases and conditions.
It has detailed descriptions, cost, and possible complications along with associated images, and videos for medical procedures like C section and cataract surgery.
Detailed information about drugs including side effects, usage instructions, brand names, and overdose first aids.
Search for doctors in your location and book appointments from your smartphone.
Find the nearest hospital and other healthcare service facilities.

The app also has the option to store your personal healthcare information such as consulted doctors, health conditions, medications, insurance information etc. By this way, you can easily share your medical history with others.

2. Weather-Pro

Weather-Pro is an app that will alert you about severe weather conditions, which are likely to hit your current location. The app comes with easy navigation, worlwide coverage for extreme weather conditions, and an Android wearable support.

The service offers realiable forecasts for weather variables including temperature, precipitation, air pressure, humidity, wind direction and speed, over two weeks in advance. Additional features include weather news and reports of about 2 million locations globally.

3. Around-Me

You will never know when you will be placed in an emergency situation. For e.g., imagine that you took the wrong road and got lost on your way back home from a weekend getaway in the middle of the night. And to make things worse you found out that your car has run out of gas.

Around-Me is just the right kind of app if you wish to be prepared to deal with any such unexpected situation that could freak you out. The app shows you a list of nearby gas stations, hospitals, restaurants, supermarkets and other similar services.

4. Flashlight

Flashlight is a very simple yet useful app, especially when darkness becomes your enemy, as it can serve as a cloak for criminal activities. This common tool added in your iPhone can possibly become your life saving appliance during a number of survival situations.

Even if you are capable of defending yourself normally, darkness can leave you disoriented. So, the first thing you want to do is become aware of your surroundings. Flashlight helps you spot someone who is hiding.

Some other advantages of keeping a flashlight ready and handy includes warding of dangerous animals, finding the way while travelling through rough terrains in the dark, sending emergency signals etc.

5. Circle of 6

Circle of 6 is a personal safety app that is originally designed for college students, yet could be beneficial for everyone. It is designed to be the first step against abuse and violence towards one’s life.

Circle of 6 lets you pick up six of your trusted friends or family members and add them to your circle. If you find yourself in a risky or threatening situation, you can get help with just two taps. The app will send alert SMS to the contacts in your circle that you are in danger and need assistance, along with your exact location.

There are also two pre-programmed national hotlines for safety and information in the app, which is customizable with the local emergency number of your choice.

Circle of 6 U, which is available for download is a school specific version of the same app.

Posted on June 28, 2016 by rbsupadminnextjssite

Human Trafficking is a very serious worldwide issue. Tens of thousands of people get trafficked each year. It is done mainly for prostitution or some form of labor and more recently, human organ trade.

Developed by an organization (Exchange Initiative) that is waging a war against sex trafficking, the TrafficCam app seems to be a very useful app.

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With this app, anyone with a smartphone can fight human trafficking. Just upload the photos of hotel rooms where the trafficked person is being held. As traffickers, especially in the sex trade, post photos in online advertisements, it is easy for investigators to track the victims and find out the perpetrators.

A database of hotel room images are created which makes it easy for investigators to zero down on the posted location

As per UNICEF, every year, 1.2 million children are trafficked worldwide. A large percent of these are children between 12-14 years of age.

Smart App ideas such as the TrafficCam mobile app are superb examples of technology helping out to tackle social issues.

Posted on June 20, 2016 by rbsupadminnextjssite

Apps are developed for almost every industry today. There are apps created in the field of communication, education, food, tourism and much more. Here are some great iPhone app development ideas that’s worth a try.

1. DIRECTORY OF RECIPES APP

This app is for those people who really like to get experimental in the kitchen. You can just simply enter the main ingredients that you may have with you and the app will show you all the different recipes that you can try out with those key ingredients. For e.g., if you give flour, chicken, egg, butter, and potato as the core ingredients, the app might give you recipe suggestions such as Chicken Kiev with mashed potato or Chicken Frittata.

2. DISTANCE MEASURING APP

This app will help you to measure the distance between two points without having to use a measuring tape. You simply need to hold your iPhone and move it between the two points, and the app will display the distance in the unit of your choice.

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3. SPEED CONTROL APP

This is a very cool idea for iPhone app development. The app will make use of the GPS technology in your phone to calculate the speed at which you are travelling. It will then alert you when the speed crosses the set limits.

4. YOUR DAY OUT GUIDE APP

With this app, you can find out exciting tourist places and attractions that could be fit for your one day trip budget. Searching the app by entering the distance you wish to travel and the budget at hand, will provide you the list and details of local tourist spots.

5. COUNT YOUR CALORIE APP

You can calculate your total calorie intake for a day through this app. Enter the food that you eat throughout the day, and an alarm will be triggered once you’ve exceeded the recommended limit. This is a very beneficial app for people who are on a diet as well as for diabetes and cholesterol patients.

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6. CELEBRITY SINGER APP

This is a fun app. Sing into your iPhone and the app will record it and play back the song to you in the sound of some popular artists that it contains. The app can be distributed as a freemium one with a few voices, and the option for in-app of more artist voices can be included.

7. FIRST AID APP

Medical emergencies happen anytime and anywhere. So, it is important for everyone to have at least some basic first aid knowledge. This necessity could be turned out into a very innovative iPhone app development idea. An iPhone app serving this purpose can guide you in giving all the necessary first aids to a victim of any injury or illness until professional help is accessible.

8. READ ONE’S MIND APP

Get ready for some serious merrymaking and laughter by pointing your iPhone at someone’s head. The app will give you a hilarious read-out of people’s thought at the moment.

9. HEIGHT TELLER APP

Yep! You’ve guessed it right. As the name suggests, this is an app that could be used for measuring someone’s height.

10. SPOT THE ITEM APP

This is a very useful app, especially for someone with serious memory issues. The app can keep track of certain items that you store in your home. The indexed item’s location is found out using the bar-code tracking technology.

11. GET FATSO APP

This app is used to create funny fatso pictures of yourself. The app is linked to your iPhone’s camera, and the pictures taken will show you as someone who has gained a few extra pounds.

Posted on June 16, 2016 by rbsupadminnextjssite

The 4th and final developer preview of the next version of Android, named Android N has been released. Devices which has been enrolled to the Android beta program will be notified of an update to the Developer Preview Version.

You can download the final SDK from the SDK Manager in Android Studio. With this, you will be able to test your app against the official Android N APIs. You can test for new features such as Multi-window, direct reply and more.

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The Android support library has been updated to 24.0.0, allowing you to use multi-window, picture in picture callbacks, new notification features, new MediaBrowser APIs and methods for supporting Direct Boot.

The N Developer Preview is now available for Nexus 6, Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Nexus 9, and Pixel C devices, as well as General Mobile 4G [Android One] devices and the Sony Xperia Z3.

Posted on June 14, 2016 by rbsupadminnextjssite

Localization is an important step in mobile game development if you are aiming for a global market. Here are the most common mistakes made during game localization.

1. Hard-coding of text inside source code

Hard-coding text into the game’s source code is a common shortcut used by developers to save their time. But, translators often get into trouble due to this, since altering or updating content means locating it from the source code every time. This is a very time consuming process and increases the overall cost of localization.

2. Not taking context seriously

Meaning of the words that we utter and the sentences that we write mainly depends on the context. Hence the importance of providing adequate contextual information for translators. For e.g., the word “date” denotes a day of a month and also a fruit. And when we say “I gave her dog food” it could mean either her dog was given food by me or that she was given dog food by me.

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Translators often become confused when there is ambiguity in the content. This also leads to a lot of time wastage for its clarification. Sending concerned images and other contextual information in advance can add up to the translation’s quality.

A good contextual information must include character descriptions, screenshots, translation style samples and other helpful details.

3. Not hiring the right people

When hiring game translators, go for native speakers who have a good gaming background. Though it’s easier said than done, following this step could give you wonderful results.

Games need special translation skills because they have a unique form of content. For e.g., translaters need knowledge of gaming slangs and other such terminologies and have to understand new gaming concepts that requires a considerable amount of content creation as well.

It is also recommended that you hire translators who are familiar with the particular genre of game that you are developing.

4. Testing localized games

Most mobile game development companies are lazy when it comes to play testing their localized games. The reason why localized games need to be tested is that there will be a lot of UI problems among the others once localization is done.

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For e.g., Russian and Ukranian translations of the sentence “The sweetest game just keeps getting sweeter!” from Candy Crush Saga are given in the below image. Obviously the sentence structure changes and the length of string varies creating UI deformities. So, actual device testing must be done after localization.

5. Ignoring the importance of culturalization

Earth is home to thousands of unique cultures. Around the globe, common practices of some places is considered offensive in some other parts. For e.g., using one’s hands to eat is against a good dining etiquette in most of the western countries, but it is the preferred and respected method of eating food in countries like India.

Similarly, each country has its own content regulations according to its state value systems. Translators must have a clear knowledge of location-wise cultural differences in order to avoid input of content that can be seen as indecent by the players of a game.

6. Treating localization as an option

Many developers think of localization as an option that could be introduced if the game gets hugely successful in the main markets. As a result, they fail to keep necessary translation records during mobile game development and thus faces many difficulties at a time when they are trying to establish a grip in the overseas markets. So, it is important to build translation materials right from the start.

Posted on June 14, 2016 by rbsupadminnextjssite

Apple CEO Tim Cook has claimed that they have paid $50 million in revenue to developers. This is a 20% increase from the $40 million in January. Last year, the number was $30 million. He was talking at the Wordwide Developers Conference yesterday.

Also the number of apps in the App Store has seen a significant increase to 2 million apps from 1.5 million apps same time last year. The total downloads has reached 130 billion.

Apple also overhauled the App Store revenue sharing model last week, now offering a developer friendly 85-15 split that are at least a year old and have subscriptions. This model replaced an 8 year old 70-30 revenue split model.

Another major development announced was that Apple would allow app creators to advertise search-related apps in the app store, thus giving users a chance to re-engage with apps.

Posted on June 7, 2016 by rbsupadminnextjssite

Modern day businesses are swiftly adopting enterprise mobility to improve productivity, enhance customer engagement and for risk mitigation in their respective corporate workplaces. But good quality enterprise apps are scanty since the field is relatively new for mobile app development companies.

Here are the top mistakes found commonly in enterprise apps that could be fatal to efficient and effective app development success.

1. User interface issues

The enterprise app’s user interface has a direct impact on user engagement. Therefore, the user interface should be so designed that it would be easy for end users to operate them.

A. Complicating the UI: Don’t treat the UI like a junkyard, which could be littered with descriptions and controls. It will give rise to an overcomplicated user interface which will negatively impact the user experience. You should be careful while choosing the features and should think in advance about the ways of implementing them without creating visual complexity.

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B. Prioritizing: You should definitely be careful not to include all contents/controls on the main screen of your app. Instead, learn to prioritize. More important and relevant content/controls should be displayed on the main page and connected content/controls can be provided in the sub-pages/sub-menus.

C. Make it effortless: Maintaining the ease of use is something that is very important for a good end user experience. For e.g., an app that makes you click/tap multiple number of times for getting even the simplest task done like saving a work or sharing a file could test the user’s patience. It would also waste considerable amount of time in completing a single task.

D. Poor graphics and text: The graphics and text used in the app should have good clarity. Inconsistent text formats, using text and background colours that are too bright or too dull, text that runs off screen, images & text that overlaps etc. could ruin the user experience.

E. Localization mistakes: Localization mistakes are the result of insufficient proof reading. Culturization is also an important part of this step. So, local translators should be hired for this purpose.

2. Absence of a purpose

All apps should have a well defined purpose and should do well defined tasks, but it is particularly important for enterprise mobile apps. Business owners often get satisfied with apps that are mere copies of third party business apps. These apps won’t be efficacious for your particular business needs.

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Every business requires unique business apps based on its environment, processes, work culture, and other such factors. So it is better to hire your own mobile app development team for your specific business app.

3. Lack of metrics

How are you going to understand the performance of your app or a business process if you do not have a proper mechanism to evaluate the success or failure of the same? Inorder to recognize the usefulness of your app or determine the value of processes, there should be regular analysis and reporting in place.

4. Security threats

Business apps must possess an intact privacy and security policy. The app should be free from all the major security and cyber threat vulnerabilities. Apart from that, the app should not allow unauthorized access or leakage of private data to third parties.

5. Crashing

App crashing is a very common issue, but it cannot be neglected because this will affect the overall productivity of a business. Efforts should be made to figure out the real reason behind sustained app crashes during the testing phase of mobile app development. They can be primarily due to issues that are too apparent like bandwidth problems, bugs in the app, memory unavailability, device incompatibility etc. These problems could be avoided if adequate measures are taken.

6. Help Menu

A well written, easy to understand, error free, comprehensive, step-by-step help menu is inevitable for every business app.

Posted on June 6, 2016 by rbsupadminnextjssite

Just imagine the pain that goes behind developing a mobile app. Sadly, in spite of best efforts, a lot of mobile app development endeavours end up as big failures. In most of these cases, there were the lack of a proper development plan. It is essential that you decide upon the importance of various facets of your project before proceeding with its implementation. Here are some of the major things that you need to keep an eye on before doing anything else.

1. Well formulated purpose

A project without a purpose or without some value could never do well in the market, and it will soon get buried into the depths of the digital app stores. So, it is highly recommended that you ask yourself the question, “why you are building your app” a few times before you start planning further.

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The app you make should solve an existing problem. You don’t need to strictly avoid imitation of an idea. People will admire your app if it provides a solution that is more interesting or easy.

2. Learn to plan from within a budget

The line between possibility and impossibility should be clearly drawn at the beginning of mobile app development itself. Blindly imitating all the features and functionalities of successful apps that you find in the app stores without questioning its practicality could cost you heavily later, when you try to implement the design.

You should understand the importance of working from within the budget you have in hand. Otherwise, if you spend too much for design extravaganzas or app features, you will find yourself in need of money to do activities that gains importance towards the end phases; especially marketing.

3. A good market research

People believe that the only thing that a market research helps in knowing is whether a demand gap exists or not for a particular product. Well, this is not necessarily so. A market research will help you to devise a good marketing strategy based on your study and observations of specific markets. You could also get feedback from public about the qualities and enhancements that are expected from the kind of apps that they already use. This way you can create apps that are unique or different.

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As most of the existing and successful apps have several drawbacks, you can offer your brand that solves those issues. For e.g., you can develop apps that give good performance and new features. They are likely to get much attention as people would probably have settled down with some app, because they had no other choices. Once they can get their hands on improved and more useful apps, what could deter them from giving it a try?

4. Early marketing

Marketing should not be left out for the last phase of mobile app development. Do everything you could, to get your app noticed during the first week of your app’s launch itself. This would mean getting the word out early. The general trend is that if you can not get a good buzz around your app during the initial months of its release, you won’t be able to hope a recovery by updates, even after the best marketing efforts.

5. Pricing your app

You might be very much excited about getting huge returns from your app right after its launch in the app store. But how could you expect to get a good return from an app that is priced too high for the particular market that you are targeting?

App pricing could vary by and large based on the particular platform, industry and country targeted, purpose fulfilled, demand for the app for doing the particular task etc. Saying that, it is advised that you should not price your app too low also. You can give your app free for trial, but pricing it too low will make doubts in the customer’s mind about the quality of the app.